Birthdayverse Realities
by Katta
Summary: Angel ep by ep in the Birthday universe. Slash! Second season, ep 4 now up: Gunn is still struggling with his mother's connections to Wolfram and Hart. Meanwhile, a mysterious drawing gives the PI agency a new mission, in the form of another W&H protegee.
1. The Reality of Absence

THE REALITY OF ABSENCE

The images struck with such force he was thrown to the floor. He fought the pain to try and make sense of the grey shape he saw. It had no detail beyond its outline and didn't seem alive at all, but he had a vague feeling he recognised it.

As the pain faded and he started to get a grip on reality, he heard the faintest of whispers: "Feels awful, doesn't it?"

Doyle? But Doyle was dead. Yet Angel was sure he had heard something, and although the pressure in his head increased he struggled to remain in the vision. Only it wasn't a vision anymore, it was something else...

And there Doyle was, kissing Buffy.

"What are you doing?"

The two of them untangled from each other, and Doyle stared at him. "What are you doing? You're not supposed to be here. The vision's over."

"I thought I heard your voice." His head hurt – and, since that was where he seemed to be, the whole world hurt, pulsating in great red waves of pain. "Why are you kissing Buffy?"

"I don't know, it's your mind. But if you'd rather I didn't..."

Buffy disappeared. Or rather, the world changed to engulf the place where she had been.

"Where did she go?"

"Where she always was."

"Is it a riddle?"

"Only if you make it one."

Angel clung to the one thing he knew for sure. "You're dead."

"Yes."

"So why are you still here?"

"I'm where I should be. Still on your mind." Doyle sat down on the sofa like so many times before, but he didn't kick his feet up like he used to. It added to the impression that he was more serious than he had ever been in life. "No, as I said, you're the one who shouldn't be here. Your mind uses this place to tell you things. So do the Powers, now. But it's hardly safe for you to wander around here all on your own."

That part Angel did understand, but he wished he hadn't.

"This isn't real, is it?"

"Now you get it. This is all in your head, there are people out there who need you, and staying here is dangerous to both you and them. Not to mention that your head must be pounding like a bongo drum by now. Be off with you."

"No. If this is the only place I can talk to you, I don't care if it's real or not. I'm staying."

"Listen, Angel, if you were meant to be conscious of your subconscious mind, you wouldn't have one!"

"I don't care." His stubborn refusal was in part a way to punish Doyle, who was looking seriously distressed by now. It didn't matter how he looked. He wasn't real anyway. "You died."

"Yeah, that tends to happen when you're being burnt to a crisp." There was a nasty tone to Doyle's voice now that made Angel flinch. "Fine. If you won't listen to me, I know just who to call."

And Darla sunk her teeth into newborn flesh, causing the baby to cry and Angel to turn his head away in despair. There was nothing he could do to stop her, but he could stop watching. If none of this was real, he could leave any moment.

He came to himself on a cold floor, more empty and lonely than he had been before. It was a while before he realised he was tied up.

Wesley was getting quite used to the smell of blood, urine and excrement, but now there was a slight tinge of rotting flesh as well. It seemed he was dying, then.

And the female of the species truly was more dangerous. It was an interesting observation that he would have noted down if he hadn't been pinned to a wall. At first, he had attempted to get loose, only to find that this didn't only cause unbearable pain, but was likely to cause fatal bloodloss. Now, he was beginning to cherish that option. Only question was if he still had the strength.

The demon had long since left, carrying its dead mate. Now there were only humans, and even they stayed mostly upstairs. Probably trying to avoid the smell.

They were arguing again. He didn't understand much Korean, but managed to make out enough words now and then to get the gist of what they were saying. "The guy in the cellar stinks. Can't we just kill him and throw him out?" "Why bother? He'll die soon anyway." "What do you think the police will say if they find him?" "What would they say if they found him after we killed him?" "Does nobody care that it's a very expensive spear he's stuck on?"

Wesley chuckled weakly. It was a very expensive spear. People had killed for a lot less. He wouldn't blame them. He just wished they'd make up their minds soon.

A curse of some sort ended the shouting for this time, and Wesley expected the sounds to die away as the people returned to their home. Instead, footsteps proceeded down the stairs, and through the mist of sweat in his eyes he could see a face.

"You won't tell anyone about this, you hear me?"

He wondered why the man bothered to threaten him, but nodded anyway. Perhaps they'd ease his death a bit. The man leaned over him and grabbed hold of the spear.

He was aware of nothing else until he was being lifted off the ground on a stretcher by some people he had never seen before but was quite confident were paramedics. And that blinking thing over there was the top of an ambulance, which meant he was outside. But he had no idea how he'd come to be there.

Apparently, neither did the paramedics, because they kept asking questions. Questions with answers that definitely infringed upon those things the man inside had told him to keep quiet about. Not that he had any reason to oblige, but since he had been let out of the cellar when he had been certain they would kill him, maybe staying quiet was the best option.

Before he could solve this moral dilemma he passed out again.

"And do I get fifteen thousand for the horn? Fifteen thousand - it's a rarity!"

Barney stopped and sniffed the air hesitantly for a moment, before turning to his assistant, whispering, "Is something burning?"

The smoke coming from the waiting objects answered that question. Cursing to himself, Barney walked over to stop the fire.

"Who the hell put the vampire that close to the window?"

A burning fist shot out and hit his face.

"I did," said Angel, shaking what remained of the ropes from his wrists. Before the sun had reached the window he'd been forced to sit still watching the auction, and it had put him in a very bad mood. He took great pleasure in grinding the face of each sleazy auctioneering demon into the floor, starting with the little creep who'd gotten him into this position. By the time he had cleaned the place out, he was grinning.

Until his gaze fell on the table with yet unsold items. Each one of those things signified a dead creature. He could have been one of them if it hadn't been for the fortunate timing of sunlight. And all because he'd been overpowered by some demon who would never have stood a chance against him if he hadn't been... unconscious...

If he hadn't stayed in the vision. That was what it all came down to. If he'd left when he was supposed to, he could have averted Barney's attempt to capture him. Sure, things had turned out all right anyway - for him. But he'd seen the Maiden with Urn before the auction had started, and he couldn't pretend that he didn't recognise it. These were the people he was supposed to help. The people he had failed.

He made his way back home in low spirit, and sat down in front of the TV set without turning it on. Could he have made a difference? That was what visions were for. So he could have. He should have. But what? He couldn't ask the Oracles, they'd been pretty impatient last time. The only person he could ask was the one who'd warned him about this to begin with. But he wasn't about to waste another vision. Maybe if he tried hard to think about what he had done last time, he'd be able to do it again.

He searched his mind for the place where the visions resided, but found nothing. His mind was as conscious as it had ever been. Closing his eyes didn't help either, that just made him sleepy. It had been a tough day. All days were tough days now, that was the agony of survival. Once again, his eyes drifted shut. He'd just close them for a moment, maybe he'd feel better later.

In his dream, Buffy was wearing a red denim dress and sharpening a stake that she put away when he came in.

"I thought you might come."

"I'm looking for Doyle." That much he remembered, even in his sleep.

"No, you're not." She stepped up to him and put her arms around his waist. "You're here to have sex with me."

"We mustn't."

"Of course we must. We do it all the time here. Don't you remember?"

He did. There had been nights when that was all he dreamed of. But he couldn't get past the stubborn feeling that there were more important things to be done. "I need to speak to Doyle."

Her smile indicated that she found him just a little bit stupid. "If it was Doyle you wanted, he would be here, wouldn't he?"

She was right, of course. That was the crux of it all. "If I could have loved him..."

"If you could." There was deep compassion in her pretty face now.

"He would have lived."

"Yes."

"But I couldn't." Nor could he fight the merciless logic of the dream. He had selfishly wanted to get rid of his guilt, but that wasn't how things worked, was it? "What can I do?"

"Whatever you want." She smiled at him as if she had given him a present. "Here, anything is possible."

"But I can't stay here forever. Can I?" Seeing her face, he suddenly knew that he could. No one would stop him. It was his choice. If he wanted, he could stay here, where he was allowed to love Buffy, and where Doyle wasn't dead. And he did want it, his mind and body screamed for it, but he knew that it would cause people to die. Because the people he were supposed to help weren't in here, they were out there.

The sounds of honking horns outside woke him up, and he rolled over onto his stomach. He'd gotten the answers he wanted. There was no point in getting up.

One of the main reasons Gunn hated hospitals was because you had to be pretty damn lucky to get help in time. He had been sitting in the waiting room for half an hour now, too busy trying to make James's blood stay in his body to yell at the doctors as much as they deserved.

"Hey, nurse, you plan on waiting until he bleeds out?"

And miracles do happen, because the woman stopped to take a look at James, whose face was taking on a greenish hue.

"Yeah, we'll have time for you in a minute..."

The doors were flung open as a group of paramedics brought in a guy on a stretcher. The nurse glanced at them and turned back to Gunn. "Maybe two minutes."

Although he was ready to hit something by now, Gunn had to admit that the guy they had brought in looked bad and smelled worse. Whatever had happened to him, it had been a while ago. If he hadn't been moving a little, Gunn would have assumed he was already dead.

"White male, approximately 30, left arm penetrated by unknown object, humerus fractured, wound severely infected. Dehydrated, blood pressure 75 over 30 - we're talking definite amputation."

"Looks like we'd have to wash him first," the nurse replied. "Is that UG he's covered in?"

Gunn only partly listened, still too occupied with James to care. The term "UG" caught his attention - he knew from previous experience that it was an acronym that the staff used for "unidentifiable goo". Usually, it meant that a demon was involved somehow. He looked at the guy with a bit more interest, trying to figure out if the attacker had been a new demon or one he knew how to kill.

The guy looked back, and his dazed eyes slid from Gunn to James, who was holding a cloth to his neck with shaking hands.

"Vampire," he said weakly. If he said something else, it was drowned in the other sounds as the doctors took him away.

Gunn sat up straight. A guy coming in, apparently wounded by a demon, who recognised the signs of a vampire attack. Of course, he could be out of his head from pain and talking nonsense.

"We have a doctor free for you now."

So Gunn followed James to the long awaited help, but his thoughts were still on the man who had been wheeled away.

Even in his dreams, Angel couldn't find peace anymore. He hadn't had any visions lately, and his sleep was disturbed by feedings. Although they reminded him of things he used to do they were not memories. He was making up new murders in his dreams.

That didn't disturb him half as much as opening the morning paper and seeing the murders described there. Every detail was right, and it made him wonder if he was going mad, had somehow committed those murders and then convinced himself they were dreams.

Another possibility, only slightly more comforting, was that since he'd used the visions to work his dreams, maybe the Powers That Be were now using his dreams to work the visions.

In either case, he needed to find out more about the murders, particularly to learn how to stop them. And so for the first time in over a week he left his apartment during office hours to meet actual people.

He felt strange stepping into the police station, seeing how nothing had changed since last time he'd been there. The everyday reality of it all made him feel as if he had suddenly turned into a dream figure himself. Kate Lockley, sitting at her desk, was far too normal a person to come to with something like this.

She saw him coming and stood up automatically. "Hi. I didn't expect to see you so soon."

He did his best to ignore the "after" implied in her greeting. "Hi. Uhm... I need your help."

"Sure. Sit down." She gestured at a chair, and didn't sit down herself until he had. "So, what's the problem?"

"Those murders they write about in the papers... I dream about them."

The tension in her face eased a bit as she gave him a wry grin. "Yeah? Join the club. You don't think they give me nightmares?"

"They're not nightmares. I enjoy them."

"Oh." Was that worry in her face, or just disgust? "Well, I can understand why that would disturb you, but I still don't see what I can do about it."

He had come in there fully prepared to be frank with her, but now what he had to say seemed highly improbable even to him. Perhaps it would be better for all involved if he just mumbled "never mind" and left. But he didn't. He had no one else to talk to.

"I dream about them before they happen. Or while," he corrected himself. "I'm not sure about which."

Her expression changed at once. Obviously she couldn't believe him.

"Listen, I'm not crazy. I saw it happen. The old man, the woman and the child. He puts crosses on their faces, then he drains them of blood, and I saw it before I heard about it. Before you throw me out, the newspapers didn't say anything about the draining so how could I possibly know?"

It seemed like forever before she let go of his gaze, and he was convinced she'd think he had lost it and would have him see a shrink. But she shrugged unexpectedly and opened a drawer. "Well, the times are no secret," she said, browsing through some papers before handing him one of them.

"Thank you." He eyed the papers and did some quick estimation of the dates and times in his head. The result wasn't encouraging. "While. I get them while they're happening."

"Does that make a difference?"

"The whole point of the visions is that you get enough time to save the victims!"

She stared at him. "You get visions of murders a lot, do you?"

"Just once before all this. That time I was awake."

"Not much to establish a pattern, then."

"Doyle had them before." The name seemed unnaturally loud, even with all the noise from people working.

"Contagious clairvoyance?" She tried to sound flippant, but the fear gave her voice a hard edge.

"Yes."

"Then what's to say I don't get it?"

He pondered that. The whole workings of the visions were still quite a mystery to him, and he doubted he'd ever find out much more than "they come, they hurt, they demand solutions". But he very much doubted you could get them just from hanging around someone. It had taken a lot more than that to transfer them from Doyle to him.

Before he realised what he was doing, he had leaned over and kissed Kate. Her eyes widened in surprise, and he felt a sharp pain in his lip. She had bitten him.

"Ow."

"What was that for?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry." What ever could have possessed his mind to make him do something like that? Sleep deprivation, probably. This course of action wouldn't have made any sense even if he wanted her to get the visions - which he most certainly didn't. "You didn't feel anything, did you?"

"I felt you kissing me. If you were expecting any strange stirrings in my utility belt I'm afraid I'll have to let you down."

"Utility belt?"

Her face turned pink. "Never mind. Listen..." There was a moment of hesitation, and Angel had time to wonder why she seemed so ill at ease when he was the one who had behaved strangely, before she continued: "I'm sorry about your friend. And it only makes sense that you would be... troubled. So maybe the best thing for everyone would be for you to just go home and rest."

"And dream about the murders?"

That made her flinch. Good. If she belittled this, they would have a serious problem.

"I dream of them while they happen. Has it occurred to you what that might mean?"

She looked down for a second, but then raised her head again, meeting his eyes. "You may not be dreaming."

"Exactly."

"But Angel, what do you want me to do about it?"

"Lock me up."

She started to shake her head, but he stopped when he grabbed her hand.

"Please. Say I have confessed. If I'm not the killer, you'll find out soon enough."

Her eyes didn't leave him. "And if you are?"

"Then I should be stopped."

It seemed like forever before she nodded. "I don't think you did it. But if making sure puts your mind at ease a bit, I'll do you that favour."

He gave her a relieved smile. "You wouldn't have any cells without windows, by any chance?"

Since Wesley didn't know anyone in Los Angeles, and hadn't contacted any of his acquaintances elsewhere, he didn't expect visitors. He'd spent the past hour thinking about his new motorcycle, because if he mourned enough over having to sell it, he wouldn't have to mourn anything else. And that was how he intended to go on spending his day.

But here was a young black man whom he had positively never seen before in his life, and according to the nurse it was his second cousin Charles.

Why anyone would make up such a lie for the benefit of his company was quite beyond him.

"Hey," the young man said as the nurse left. "You don't know me. I'm Charles Gunn."

"Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. So, you're my second cousin?"

"I had to say something."

Wesley waited patiently for an explanation that didn't come at first. Charles Gunn was looking at his face. That was the normal place to look at people, but something about the steadiness of that gaze was quite unnerving. It took a while before Wesley realised that it probably was so that he wouldn't risk looking somewhere else. The thought of that made his chest hurt.

"How can I help you?"

"I was here the other day," Charles Gunn said. "Well, not here here. Down at the ER with a friend. He had a neck wound. I was taking him to a doctor."

Neck wound. Wesley straightened up a bit. "Go on."

"They brought you in on a stretcher while we were sitting there. You diagnosed my friend just by throwing an eye at him. Diagnosed him correctly, too."

"I see." Caution prevented him saying more.

"So how come you know about them?"

He wasn't up to telling some stranger about Watcher business. Or even ex-Watcher business. And to use the phrase "rogue demon hunter" in a situation like this would be utterly pathetic. "I hunt them."

"Really? Me too." Charles Gunn grinned and stopped looking as if just being at a hospital would somehow damage his health. He finally sat down, letting his long legs stretch out into the room. A moment later, he was serious again.

"You been doing this for long?"

"Just a few months. But I've prepared for it most of my life."

There was an extended silence. No one brought up the subject of what he was to do now. The bare thought made his arm hurt something awful. It didn't help that he told himself that it wasn't there. So instead he tried telling himself that of course it was there, that was why it hurt, and in the long run everything would be all right.

"Maybe it's time for me to go. You must be tired."

"I suppose I am."

"So... my gang's down at East Hills. If you ever need a hand... I mean..."

Wesley had to bite his cheek not to laugh. His eyes filled with tears.

"I'll let you know." He found to his surprise that he didn't want Charles Gunn to leave. He'd enjoyed a bit of company.

"Bye, then."

"Goodbye, Charles."

Charles Gunn stopped in the doorway and smiled a little. "It's Gunn. Charles is just..." He grimaced. "Pansy."

"Oh. All right."

He watched Gunn leave, and his heart sank. His presence had been more than just company. Nobody had smiled like that at him for longer than he could bear.

And he was barely more than a boy. There was no getting around that. Oh, Gunn was very old for his age, in many ways quite like a Slayer. But still too young in other ways, unaware of his effect on people as Cordelia hadn't been, even though he must be older than her.

Wesley certainly had a way of getting himself into unfortunate situations. Still, he appreciated this turn of events. At the very least, Gunn had given him something pleasant to think about.

Penn.

Angel woke up from yet another disturbing dream, and that was the one thing his mind held on to. He didn't know if the face he had seen was real, but it made sense. Penn had always been a traditionalist. The murders fitted his act - provided he hadn't changed it in the past two hundred years. And why would he? It wasn't as if the guy had any imagination.

But he couldn't know for sure. What he had seen hadn't been an ordinary dream or a vision, that much was certain. It might be an effect of the bond he had to Penn as a sire – or it might just be another piece of statics from the borderlands of his mind.

He had avoided returning there, but the possibility always remained. After the last couple of dreams, he thought he knew the way even awake. Problem was, when he went in, he wasn't sure he ever wanted to leave.

Maybe if he held on to something. Not stopping Penn, because he couldn't be sure that belonged to the outer world. But Kate would go through unnecessary trouble if he remained inside his own head. And in a town like this, a cop who researched the inexplicable had enough trouble as it was.

So with Kate on his mind he dived in, and he shouldn't have been surprised to find her there.

"This is the guy," she said, showing him a drawn profile of Penn. "He'll kill again. He killed tonight."

"He did?"

"Of course. He will keep killing until he finds you. That was why he came here."

"To kill?"

"To find you." She drew circles around Penn's face, wider and wider. "He's calling you, but you don't answer."

"I didn't know."

"You knew. You just didn't listen."

"I listen now."

"Go out there. Find him and stop him."

"I will." Then he remembered that even if his mind was firmly by Kate's desk, his body was still locked in a cell. "I can't."

"Oh, I forgot." Her expression changed to a cynical smile. "You're stuck. And dawn's coming soon, isn't it?"

He wasn't too sure of the hour, but he suspected that she was right. With all the time he had wasted, there was no chance of finding Penn before the sun rose. His guilt and confusion had bought Penn another night of murder.

"Sucks to be you, doesn't it?" she said sunnily, pinning up the drawing of Penn's face on the wall. The grey pencil lines pulled together in a triumphant grin.

Watching Penn gloat was more than Angel could stand, and so he hurried to leave his mind, waking up in a cell only dimly lit up by night lamps.

"Angel?"

Kate was standing outside, and for a second he thought he had failed to return.

"He's killed again."

"You said."

"What?"

And then he knew that this was real. But so were the dreams, that had told him the same thing.

"Let me out. I know who the killer is."

"Hey, Gunn, there's a guy out there to see you."

Gunn welded the last spike onto the axe and then looked up at Alonna. "What guy?"

"White, snotty looking, missing an arm?"

"Oh, him." Gunn rose from his position on the floor and brushed the dirt off his butt. "He's a demon hunter," he said by way of explanation.

"Really? Because he looks more like the kind who gets eaten by one. Hell, it's already had a wing."

"Shut up, Alonna."

Heading outside, Gunn had to admit that there was a certain accuracy in Alonna's statement. Even dressed up in leather, Wesley wasn't a likely person to turn to with supernatural problems. Desolation fitted better on the face of the victim than of the saviour.

"Hey."

"Hello." If Wesley had worn a tie, he would have straightened it. "I was wondering if you would be interested in purchasing a motorcycle."

"A motorcycle?" Okay, so he sounded like an idiot repeating it. If Wesley said motorcycle, chances were that he meant a motorcycle. But he hadn't exactly expected the guy to show up on his doorstep and try to sell him a bike.

"Yes. I... have one, that I intend to sell."

Gunn had a strange feeling he was missing something vital. "Where would I get the money for that?"

"Quite. That is a problem." No grown man should ever look as embarrassed as Wesley did at that moment. "I should probably get going, then."

"We could find a buyer for you." That was Alonna, who had stepped up behind him. Whatever this conversation was really about, she seemed to understand it better than he did. "If you need the money."

"I do, actually." His relief was unmistakable. "And I don't know many people in this town, so if you would be kind enough to assist me I'd be much obliged."

That was even stranger. Though Wesley might look a bit down at the moment – who wouldn't – it was pretty clear he had better breeding than a race horse. But Alonna seemed to have expected it.

"No problem. It might as easily have been one of us."

That was when it finally clicked in Gunn's head. Wesley was standing here looking like something the cat had dragged in, which meant the hospital had kicked him out. But they usually kept loaded people as long as they possibly could, which in its turn meant that he didn't have enough money to pay the bills – and had to sell the bike. Damn.

"We'll find you that buyer," he promised. "As a business deal. We help you now, and maybe one day you'll help us with what you know about demons."

The way Wesley's face lit up was almost religious. "I would be honoured to assist you."

"Same here." He found to his surprise that he actually looked forward to meeting the guy again.

Alonna kept her face kind for until Wesley had left. But when she turned to Gunn her expression was a lot less charitable.

"What?" he said, defensive even though he didn't know what he had done wrong.

"Who was that?"

"I told you, he's a demon hunter. I met him at the hospital when James was hurt. Will you stop looking at me like that?"

"I'm just surprised to see you suddenly show such a lot of respect for some demon-eaten white guy."

"What? You heard him. He's broke... and crippled. What would you have me do, throw him out? Besides, you were the one who suggested we find a buyer for his bike."

"I'm not arguing that." She crossed her arms. "But I can't help but wonder if you'd been as helpful if it hadn't been a demon taking that arm of his."

He turned to go inside. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Sure it does. I know you. The closer you can get to an actual victim, the better."

"Alonna..." It wasn't like her to be this callous. "I saw him come in. He could have died from that wound."

"Well, sure. That's what's so great, isn't it?"

"Man, there's just no talking to you today."

"Fine." She hurried past him and blocked his way going in. "I talk, you listen. Why do you think he's selling that bike? Because he needs the money, sure. But I'm willing to bet it also has something to do with the fact that he can't ride it. Hell, even getting dressed must be a real party for him now. So, I'd just appreciate it if you gave that some thought next time you rush head first into some vampire nest."

She had some crazy ideas about him, but her concern was still genuine, and he pulled her closer, kissing her softly on the forehead.

"Don't you worry, little sister. I can take care of myself."

"Bus full of schoolchildren, Penn? You really think I was going to fall for that?" Angel watched Penn closely. Odd how this was real, and yet it felt pale and artificial compared to the world inside his head. As if Penn and his victims didn't even matter.

But there was Kate, splashing holy water into the killer vampire's face. And she at least was still real, even if Penn acted like a tired old novel he'd read a thousand times already. If Penn killed her, she'd be just as dead as when the story had originally been written.

He could see that Penn didn't understand. Not what had happened to Angel, not why Kate should matter in the least. Not even how worn out his own act had become. So he grasped the one thing he did understand – that Angel was the enemy now. If he hadn't been so dangerous, it would have been pathetic.

Actually, as Angel slammed Penn to the ground, he came to the conclusion that it was still pathetic. It would be even if Penn killed him, which was beginning to look like a definite possibility.

Of course, unlike Penn, he wasn't foolish enough to forget Kate. She was standing there now with a broken board in one hand, and he knew she was willing to use it if she got a chance.

Use it on both of them, maybe.

And then there was no maybe, because Penn held him fast, and the only way for Kate to finish this was to destroy them both. He stopped fighting, waiting for her to do it. Last year he had been killed, and that had singluarly failed to meet his expectations. But this time there would be no centuries in Hell. Just a simple dusting. He found himself looking forward to it.

When she finally made the blow, he was surprised to find the makeshift stake hitting him too low, the thrust travelling up at an angle from his stomach to Penn's heart. He'd expected a better aim from a police officer.

"You missed," he said, uncertain if this made him sad or happy.

Her face mirrored his uncertainty. "No, I didn't."

A pity. Two hundred and forty-eight years was really too long to live. Almost ten times longer than twenty-five.

The bike was beautiful. Gunn was no expert in the field, but even he could tell that much. Seeing Wesley's face now that they were standing in a gravel yard discussing at what price he was going to part with it almost made him feel guilty for participating in all this. He knew Jack was a decent guy who'd offer a good price, but he still wished Wesley would stop looking as if he was being taken away to be hanged.

"Five thousand good enough for you?"

"It's fine."

For a rushed deal like this, five thousand was a good price, and Gunn knew it. But he couldn't get past the pain in Wesley's eyes. This was way more than just a bike. He knew how deep a piece of machinery could get to you if there was nothing else to cling to. And so he interrupted.

"Hey, this shit is almost brand new. You got to be able to offer at least ten."

"In a store, maybe. But if we're talking fast money – not a chance."

"It's really all right," Wesley started, flustered, but Gunn wouldn't let him into the conversation.

"Eight."

"Six. And even then it'll have to be an instalment purchase."

"Seven. Half of it ASAP."

"Deal."

It was all over within half an hour, and Gunn grinned at Wesley's dazed look. "He'll bring you the money. Trust me."

"I do, actually." He swallowed hard. "You didn't have to do that."

"Oh, no problem. You should have the best price you can get. Besides, next time you'll be helping me. A bit of demon know-how, that kind of thing, right?"

"Absolutely." There was something decidedly odd about Wesley's expression, almost as if he was hiding something.

Which was ridiculous. The guy couldn't ever bargain.


	2. Distorted Reflections

DISTORTED REFLECTIONS

"Hey, Alonna," Bobby said, swallowing the bite he'd taken of his sandwich before he sat down with the others. "You're a friend of Carmela Juarez, right?"

"A bit, yeah." She looked up from her own meal, surprised at his sudden interest in her friends. "Why?"

"Well, is she... uhm..."

"If you have to uhm about it, the answer is probably yes."

The way he squirmed was almost endearing, and caused quite a bit of laughter from the others.

"Thing is, she seemed a bit... pregnant."

"What?" Not that it was very surprising in itself. Alonna would just never have expected Carmela to stay pregnant long enough for it to be visible. And Bobby wasn't exactly the perceptive type. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. She was really huge."

Her mind stood still. "Bobby, that's impossible. It's not that long since I last met her."

"She's probably just gone fat," one of the others interjected.

"Fatter."

"Shut, up, both of you," she snapped, still watching Bobby. It was clear he meant it. "It must have been a joke or something."

"Didn't look like a joke. She was crying."

That was so completely unlike Carmela Juarez that Alonna's eyes automatically went to Gunn, asking him to come up with an explanation. As if they were still kids and he was the big brother who could take care of everything.

But Gunn looked just as uncomfortable as the rest of the guys. How entirely typical.

"We got to check her out," she said to him. "I mean, either she was pulling Bobby's leg, or... or there's something really weird going on."

He averted his eyes. "Whatever you say, sis."

Of all the people that might have shown up at Wesley's doorstep, he never would have expected to see the girl who was with Gunn. Her name was Alonna, but when he saw her standing there that wasn't what came to mind. She was the girl who was with Gunn, and he wondered if she knew that, knew how much he envied her for it. It didn't matter if they were friends or lovers, she was still the person standing by that youth like an extension of his being – or maybe he was an extension of hers.

"Do you know anything about supernatural pregnancies?"

She must have seen his consternation, because she continued: "I have this friend who got pregnant overnight. I mean, nine months pregnant overnight. And, you know, that's not normal."

"I would say not." He opened the door wider. "Do come in. But why come to me?"

She stepped in, mercifully not commenting on the state of his motel room. There was a certain absurdity to the situation. He didn't much like her, and he got the feeling it was mutual. And yet here she was, requesting his assistance in matters people who knew him would have found too complicated for his talents.

"The gang's great at killing demons. It's a bit trickier when the thing to be killed is inside someone else. Plus –" she gave him a wry grin "– if I as much as mention 'pregnancy' my brother tries to hide under a table. Not unlike you right now."

She had a point, of course. Embarrassment wouldn't help. Neither would his mind being currently stuck at "brother", as if that actually made any difference whatsoever. He forced himself to concentrate on the problem. "Go on."

"That's pretty much it, really. She doesn't know what caused it or what to do about it, and neither do we. So we talked it over, and decided to ask you."

He wondered whose decision that had been, hoping for Gunn's. "Well, I've heard of demons who can only reproduce by implanting a human woman with their seed. The women..." He hesitated to tell her what he had learned of the women.

"Don't feel so good afterwards?" she suggested. "Do you know what to do about it?"

He shook his head slowly, and she shrugged. "Well, it was worth a shot. See you."

So coming to him probably hadn't been her idea. Which made it all the more vital that she didn't leave empty handed, claiming he was useless. "Wait. I have some books that might be of importance when it comes to identifying the demon in question."

"Books are good."

"Indeed. It might take a while though – perhaps we should bring them with us?"

That was so transparent she must understand what it was about, but even though her eyes narrowed a bit she didn't protest. "Sure, we can do that."

It took until he had stacked the books on the table before he saw the need to reconsider that idea. Sure, he could carry the books – but not open the door, or lock it, or in general look as tough as he'd like to right now.

She solved the problem for him by picking up the stack. "Is that all of them?" The question indicated a certain irony – there were half a dozen books, all quite large.

"No, but I think they will do for the time being."

They both smiled briefly, and the tension eased a little.

"Well, if you don't have anything else, at least you got a lot of reading material."

"Yes. I... I thought of selling them, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it."

She let her hand stroke the cover of the top book, and he turned from the sight, going back to the door.

"You're not going to use them anymore?"

"I don't quite see how I can make it as a demon hunter." Or anything else, but that he wouldn't tell her for the world. His university degree had been in obscure languages only useful to translate old prophecies and other things found in demonology. And it seemed he had disqualified himself from manual labour.

He struggled with his jacket, hoping she was too preoccupied with the books to pay much attention. But when he turned back, she was watching him with an intensity that bordered on rudeness. She didn't give him a chance to forget what he was. Then again, neither did politely averted gazes like Gunn's.

"I wish I'd let Gunn come with me."

That surprised him, mainly because for the first time in this entire conversation he didn't. "Why didn't you?" he asked as he stepped outside, taking the key out of his pocket.

She stepped out after him with the books propped up against her chest. "I just hate to see a man blush. Two is more than I can handle."

A joke. He appreciated the effort, but he had asked in earnest and wanted an answer.

They walked down the stairs and were out on the street before she spoke again. "My bro's like a kid poking the big dogs with a stick. He's got to see how close he can get before they bite him."

He'd never been one of those children, but he'd always admired them, and so he got her point. Because the fascination above all was reserved for the child who was bitten.

Did she really think he'd use a status based on that? He tried to wrap his mind around that preposterous concept as they walked down the stairs. Most of the time, he was just trying to forget that anything ever happened, forget the stares, the dull ache where his arm used to be, and she thought he'd just flaunt it in front of Gunn to get in his high esteem?

They reached the street, and Alonna dumped the books on the floor of the truck. Wesley would have been shocked to see his precious reference literature so carelessly treated, had not her brother been sitting in the driver's seat, eyebrows raised in amusement.

"Thought you'd never come."

And it appeared Alonna had been correct after all.

"I don't understand. I finish the night's work, go to bed, everything's fine – only when I wake up, I'm like this."

Carmela looked at them pleadingly, and Gunn averted his gaze. It wasn't his fault this had happened, and he would feel so much better if he knew what to do about it. At least then he could get past the guilt he was feeling, that stemmed from relief. This could have happened to Alonna, had things been different, and he couldn't help it, he was incredibly relieved he'd been there to keep her safe.

She could have been the one. Instead she was playing nurse, holding Carmela and cooing sweet comforting noises, and wasn't that a laugh? Alonna didn't do sweet, not unless they were in some serious danger, and so if nothing else it told him that she was scared. For Carmela, sure, but possibly for herself too. There were no guarantees for a girl in L.A. except that shit happens – again and again.

Wesley was sitting cross-legged on the floor looking in books. A nerdy course of action, but it fitted him somehow. And it wasn't as if they had any better options. Wesley shrugged with his bad shoulder – at least Gunn interpreted it as a shrug until Wesley looked up in confusion, blushed, and reached out for a book. Gunn hurried to look elsewhere.

"But the weirdest part," Carmela was explaining to Alonna with intermittent sobs, "is that it's not just a demon thing, you know? It's not just what they did to me, it's me. It's a part of me, so I'm what has really changed, you know? It seems like the world is different, and it's really just me."

"It's gonna be okay," said Alonna, and then addressed Wesley: "How's it coming?"

"Badly, I'm afraid," he replied, browsing the second book. "Carmela, have you had any human... sexual encounters lately, that you found strange somehow?"

Gunn nearly choked, and even Alonna seemed momentarily stunned. But Carmela smiled for the first time since they arrived.

"None I didn't know from before. Except there was this guy..." She frowned. "Rich guy, nice car. But his money smelled weird."

"Weird how?"

She made a move to get up, but was too heavy to manage. "My wallet's in the top drawer."

Alonna dug through the drawer until she found the wallet, and took a sniff. "Gross." She handed it over to the guys.

Gross didn't even begin to describe it. Gunn grimaced at the smell. It couldn't have been much worse if something had died in there. "Telling you anything?" he asked Wesley, who shook his head.

"Okay," Alonna said, taking it back. "Give me a description and I'll check the streets, see if anyone knows a rich guy with smelly money."

Wesley looked shocked. "I'm not sure that would be entirely wise."

"I have a better chance of finding something out than you two would," Alonna pointed out.

"Lighten up, English," Gunn said, sitting down next to Wesley on the floor.

"I just find it unsuitable that..."

"You want to go out there and ask hookers nosey questions?" Alonna asked. "No? Just as I thought."

She got the basic, very human description of the perpetrator from Carmela and headed out. Gunn noticed the look on Wesley's face and smirked.

"She knows what she's doing. You don't have to play superhero for her sake."

"Well, if you say so..."

"I used to think about pregnancy, but I never thought it would be like this," Carmela said.

Wesley got up from the floor and went over to her, somewhat awkwardly. At least if he comforted her, Gunn wouldn't have to.

"Of course you didn't. Nobody expects something like this to happen."

"You know what?" She looked up at him. "I think I'm going to name him Damien."

"Darla, can you please stop doing that?"

Angel had willingly stepped into the borderlands when he felt the pain of a vision coming on, but the sight of Darla sucking the life out of the pregnant woman made him reconsider his decision.

"Don't be such a baby," she told him, blood on her lips. "She's not dead yet."

The woman was pale and withered from the blood loss, only her belly not shrunken and wasted, and that seeming to grow larger every passing moment. Yet she gave Angel a reassuring smile.

"I'm fine," she said. "Won't be this that kills me."

"What will be?"

Darla and the pregnant woman both smiled in perfect understanding. Next thing he knew, Darla was bending over and ripping open the woman's belly.

Small, demonic creatures welled out, more and more of them. The woman was still smiling, even as her face withered away. The last thing he saw on it before it fell apart completely was that blissful smile.

He looked up in horror and saw Darla cradling the small demons in her hands. Very slowly, she let them drop to the floor. More pregnant women came up behind her, crowding them both.

"They are so many," Angel said, not sure what he was to do about that.

"Pretty maids all in a row," Darla taunted, dropping another demon from her hands. He grabbed her, trying to stop her from making her garden grow.

"Is this a vision? Am I supposed to stop it?"

"You were, but now you're not." Darla smiled at him, and before he could react, she had put one of the little demons in his mouth. "There are other champions. The Powers leave nothing to chance."

The demon was large enough to fill him mouth, but somehow he still managed to swallow it automatically before he could stop himself. "Other champions? Who?"

"We're both on a need to know basis here." And the face was still hers, the smile was hers, but it was Doyle's voice she was using and he could have hit her.

"Don't ever do that."

"Ooh, scary, Angelus." She moved closer. "I made you what you were. They made you what you are. But tell me, which one of us made you such an ungrateful bastard?"

His nails dug into her skin. "What am I? What do they need me for, if they have other champions?"

"You're the messenger."

"No."

"You are."

"Doyle is the messenger."

"Doyle is dead."

"Not here, he isn't."

Her smile widened. "But you're not staying here."

Wesley took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and took a second look. It was there all right. He felt a surge of joy, followed by a surge of disappointment. Since Gunn was still busy with his own book, Wesley cleared his throat.

"What's up?" Gunn said, raising his head from the book so fast Wesley suspected he'd been close to falling asleep. Carmela had done so a long time ago.

"I think I've found the demon. Actually, I'm quite positive I've found the demon. And it appears if we kill the father the spawn will die too."

"Great!" Gunn clapped Wesley on the back, and Wesley tried to pretend that didn't hurt. It was a touch.

"There is a bit of a problem." He didn't particularly want to speak about the bit of a problem, but it seemed he would have to. "The demon is practically indestructible."

That sobered Gunn a little. "Practically indestructible or actually indestructible?"

"I doubt there is such a thing as an actually indestructible demon. But it's immune to decapitation, and fire..." He sighed. "And the size of it..."

"Huh."

"Exactly."

"Ever encountered a demon like that before?"

What a laugh. As if he'd ever make it past a demon of that size. Except of course, that he had made it past a demon of that size – without being very helpful, admittedly.

"There was a quite huge demon in Sunnydale, where I was stationed before."

"And you killed it?"

"Well." He wanted to sound good, but he couldn't quite manage to lie. "Collectively."

"How?"

"We blew it up. That one wasn't immune to fire."

"Okay, so not fire and not sharp stuff. So that leaves us with what? Ice and blunt stuff?"

"Yes, why not throw ice cubes at it?"

At first he regretted snapping like that, but Gunn's grin made him change his mind. Before either of them could continue the conversation, the door burst open and Alonna stormed in.

"I got the guy," she said breathlessly. "Dirty, shitheaded bastard, I got him. And trust me, he's not going to impregnate anyone any time soon."

"Great," Gunn said. "We got the demon. And we're thinking of throwing ice cubes at it."

She stared at him. "Of course you are. You're both idiots."

Apparently tasteless and improper jokes were a natural part of their conversation.

"Seriously, though, what do you do with big hard-to-kill demons?"

"Everything you can think of, probably," she said. "Can we put this on hold a minute? I'm going to check on Carmela."

Alonna disappeared into the bedroom and returned right away. "Where is Carmela?"

"In there, sleeping," Gunn said, looking just as confused as Wesley felt. The room was small, and even if Carmela had taken the effort to get out of bed there wasn't anywhere to go.

Alonna shook her head slowly. "Uh-uh. She's nowhere in sight. You know what, though? Back door's open."

If Wesley's priorities had previously been the kill, rather than the victim, they changed that very second.

Apart from Alonna, no girl had ever punched Gunn before. But Carmela wouldn't let anyone hinder her, and now his eye was swelling up. It would have been utterly embarrassing if Wesley and Alonna hadn't looked just as bad. Of course, he'd only gotten a quick glimpse of Alonna before she told him that if they couldn't stop Carmela, following her was the best option, and wasn't it lucky that she was the smallest person around?

"So, now we have two girls in there," Wesley said, rubbing his jaw. "And possibly a demon."

"Alonna can take care of herself."

And as if to prove him right, he spied Alonna sneaking out of the warehouse. Her shocked demeanour told him a thing or two about what was in there.

"Demon?"

"Real fucking huge demon," she corrected him, eyes wide. "And a whole bunch of pregnant women. If I'd known the john had been this busy, I'd have hurt him a whole lot more permanently."

Fabulous. Gunn shook his head, trying to figure this one out. Killing the demon was hard enough without having to worry about a bunch of innocent people.

"Did you contact the others?"

"Yeah," he said, eyes narrowed at the warehouse entrance as if he expected the answer to show up there. "They're coming as soon as possible. But you know, I was counting on a kill and run sort of thing, with grabbing Carmela somewhere in the middle."

"That won't work."

"Yeah, I figured that one out. How many women are we talking about, anyway?"

"I don't know. Twenty?"

"Twenty?" That was Wesley chiming in. Gunn echoed the sentiment, but not the words. He had spotted the gang driving up, the truck loaded with weapons. If they didn't have a plan, at least they had an arsenal.

"Okay," he said as soon as the truck stopped. "Let's head inside."

He didn't quite know what he had expected the pregnant women to be doing. But it sure wasn't stepping into an icky bath and preparing to have their babies. From what Wesley was muttering, that wasn't something they were going to survive.

"Any great ideas?" he asked over his shoulder to the group.

"We could set off the big bombs and make the roof cave in," Rondell suggested. "That ought to kill him."

"And us." That was Alonna.

"Hey, I didn't say it was perfect."

The creature was looking in their direction. Not a good thing. Gunn was pretty sure it hadn't discovered them yet, but he still ducked and gestured for the others to keep their voices down.

"Okay. James, what are our weapons?"

"Uhm... spike bombs..."

"Might work, but we'd risk hurting the girls. What else?"

"Rifles, for some reason. Molotov cocktails."

"Haven't you guys heard anything I said about this demon?" Of course, he'd told them to improvise. But improvising didn't mean bringing the same weapons they always did, regardless of what they were about to face.

"Nitro...gen?" James sounded confused. "What the hell? I said nitro-glycerine."

"Nitrogen will do just fine," said Wesley. It was the first thing he had said since they entered. Mostly he had just looked surprisingly pale for someone who had presumably seen it all. Now he turned to address the group.

"Hurl it as close to the demon as you can. We had rifles, yes?"

The boys looked at Gunn, who at first didn't know what to say. He didn't mind people with good plans taking over, but Wesley hadn't actually said what his plan was. Then he realised what was going on, and his mouth curled up.

"Ice cubes, huh?"

"I should say so."

Gunn nodded, grabbing the drum of nitrogen. It was important to get it as close to the demon as possible, or it wouldn't work out. Dangerous, sure, but worth the risk. He ran down the room, and when the creature turned its head towards him, he yelled, "Hey, beast boy! Catch!"

The demon caught the drum with ease and looked down at where Gunn was standing, quite a bit below him.

"Why are you bothering me, human?"

"Actually, I planned on killing you and saving these women. You game to thrown down?"

The demon stepped forward.

"Apparently so," Gunn mumbled. "Shoot!"

And he threw himself on the floor just in time to hear Alonna's bullet fly over his head. She was a good shot. The demon screamed for a split second, and then its frozen body silenced. Instead, the scream was repeated in many voices from the women. Gunn turned his head and saw how their stomachs slowly deflated. He crawled back to his feet and returned to the others with light steps.

"So, that worked out well."

Alonna stopped on her way down to the women, rifle in her arms, and looked at him. "And you're not seeking out danger? Right."

He meant to answer, but she was already moving on, and he had the others to think of. James was standing in a position almost as frozen as the demon's, and Gunn slapped him kindly.

"Thanks for the nitrogen."

James shook his head slowly. "You know, I could have sworn it was nitro-glycerine when I swiped it."

"It worked, who cares? I'm just glad Wesley is such a fast thinker."

He looked over James's shoulder down towards the ex-pregnant women, who were leaving for the exit with the aid of his group. Wesley was leading Carmela back, his arm across her shoulders. His eyes met Gunn's, and he gently let go of Carmela, letting her proceed alone.

"Go on. I need a word with Gunn."

"You do?" Gunn couldn't help the question from coming out of his mouth. "About what?"

But Wesley said nothing else, and Gunn had to wave for the others to go ahead without them. When the last person had headed out the door, he nodded at Wesley.

"What you did just now..."

Gunn braced himself. That low voice sounded an awful lot like Alonna's before she started yelling at him.

"It was incredibly brave. And I feel I owe it to you to tell the truth."

There was an extended pause, and Gunn knew he should say something, only his mind was on pause and there was nothing to say.

"I was fired from my previous job, because I was incompetent and cowardly. I came to L.A. tracking the wrong demon, which was by the way already dying, and I was pinned to a wall by its mate because I refused to let it die in peace. I have messed up more than should be humanly possible, and I let you think I was a hero because I didn't know what else to do." He paused, and then added, "That's all."

All of a sudden, he looked so much shorter. And younger. And most important of all, terribly tired. Gunn was still trying to make his mind work this out, and he had a suspicion he'd be terribly angry when he did. As it was, he only raised his eyes and looked at the demon at the other end of the room.

"It's dead, isn't it?" he said.

"Uh – yes. Yes, it definitely is."

"So what's the problem?"

With all the traumatized women they had to return to their homes, it was a while before Alonna got a chance to talk to Wesley. During the long rides in one direction and another, she watched him closely, and noticed the increasing distance between him and Gunn. A couple of times she pulled the already written note out of her pocket, looking for a trash can to put it in. But when she passed a trash can, the note was always already back in her pocket.

And so when the last woman had been taken care of, Alonna stood outside the headquarters with the note hidden in her hand, and she still wasn't sure if she meant to throw it away or give it to Wesley as she called him to come talk to her.

He'd never looked particularly perky, but now he looked so tired it bordered on illness. And he'd just helped save her friend. The best thing to do would be to let him work with them and help him fit into L.A.

"You wanted to talk to me?"

Or the next best thing.

"Do you want a job?"

His brow furrowed. "I beg your pardon?"

She hoped her voice didn't ring as false to him as it did to her. "If you do, I know a place." Even though she had by now nearly decided not to, she handed him the note. "This is the address and phone number of Anne Strong. She runs the teen shelter; I'm sure you've seen it."

He turned the note over in his hand. "I have."

"She took over last month, and I know she's still looking for help." Her hands felt weird without the note to hold and fold, and she stuck them in her pockets to keep them still. "It's not like some fancy office job, but it'd give you a chance to move out of that motel."

At first he did nothing at all. Then he nodded slowly, closing his hand around the note. "Anne, was it?"

"That's the girl."

He could decline it, of course. Figure out what it was she was actually trying to do and tell her to go shove it. She smiled at the possibility. But then again, it was a good offer, and a true one. A guy in his position shouldn't turn something like that down.

"I'll give her a call."

He nodded again, this time as a brief goodbye, and started walking down the street. She remained, feeling strangely disappointed, like a child who had just had her Christmas present taken away – and she actually knew that experience first hand. And that was just silly. This was what she had given him the note for. You didn't wave an offer like that around if you didn't mean it. And Anne had been asking her to help her find some people. She was just keeping a promise.

She returned inside and found Gunn stacking away the weapons. He hadn't noticed her, and she let it stay that way, watching him in silence for a while before getting ready for bed. After all these times, he knew how she felt about his stunts. The one tonight had been somewhat more stupid than they normally were, but not surprisingly so. For each mission, he was getting closer to the edge, and it was her job to keep him away from it. She'd send anyone to Hell who tried to stop her.

Wesley Wyndham-fuckhim-Pryce should count his blessings.

Angel lit a few lamps, but the shadows remained. The room was mirrored in the large window, and he walked up to it, watching the reflections of his furniture. It was all there, every last detail, except him. According to the mirror image, he didn't exist. He'd contemplated that many nights before, but now as he let his fingers brush the glass he took the thought further. Say that the mirror was the image telling the truth, and the world was lying. One lie so easily led to another. Who was to say where they stopped, and which mirror image was the distorted one?

"I won't let you die," he said to the man he couldn't see in the mirror, but whose burning face was always in front of his eyes. "I know you can hear me, and I don't care if you tell me it isn't real. The mirror isn't real, and yet it tells me the truth."

He didn't get a response, but that didn't matter for the time being. Still staring into the dark window, seeing the world outside behind the image of his furniture, he continued:

"Here's the deal. You're the messenger. You'll always be the messenger for as long as I'm here. I'm the one who goes out and fights the things, but then again, that was always my part. And I get the headaches, which is fine. I can probably take them better than you anyway.

"Actually, if there's an upside to all of this, it's that you'll never get any more of those headaches. Or hangovers, or colds, or any of those things living people get. You're dead. What difference does it make? I'm dead too, and I'm still hanging around. I won't let you bail on a stupid notion like that. Not when I know you're in there.

"Now, I know you don't like this – any of this. You've been throwing Darla at me to try and stop me. Dirty fighting. Then again, as a punishment I deserve it. But I'm not going to take intimidation tactics. I don't care what you show me, as long as you're the one showing it I'm staying put.

"I can't love you the way you loved me. I'm sorry about that, but there's nothing I can do about it. But you were... about the only friend I've had in a very long time. And you died for me. I wish to God that you hadn't."

He closed his eyes, trailing his fingers over the glass to erase the scars on a long gone body.

"But you did. And I'm going to keep you alive, every way I can. Even if you hate me for it."

He opened his eyes again and stepped away from the window. It was time to get outside, kick some bad guys. Before he left, he turned off the lamps again. And the mirror image disappeared.


	3. All Talk

ALL TALK

So Wesley talked to Anne, the woman in charge of the East Hills teen centre. She wasn't at all what he had expected, this soft spoken blonde hardly older than the kids she took in. At first, when he saw her standing in the doorway surrounded by young people who had been born tough, he couldn't understand how she even managed the job. But her eyes meeting his were the most undisturbed he had seen since the hospital, and her voice might be soft, but it wasn't meek.

"Hi," she said, and shook hands briefly before taking him inside. "I'm so glad you could come. I was just put in charge and the place is a mess – so if you decide to stay you're highly welcome."

She grimaced as she took her seat in the small office, and for a moment it made her look like a little girl. "Probably not the best advertising I could have done. Please –" She gestured to the second chair.

"That's all right," he said, taking her offer to sit down. Her stress made him feel a little bit better. And he liked the way she treated him. Not a 'Gee, is that sleeve empty? I hadn't noticed' attitude, as if it didn't even matter. Just the slight hint in her behaviour that there might be things that mattered more.

Right now she was shuffling through some papers. After a moment, she put them down again. "Uhm... sorry."

"About what?"

"I don't know. My lack of concentration. So, Alonna didn't say much about your background. Do you have any experience of working with teenagers?"

Strictly speaking, the answer was yes. But the complete disaster that had been Sunnydale was hardly a merit. "Not this kind of work."

"Okay." She bit her lip and smiled. "Neither did I when I started here. Apart from being one. But I'm supposed to ask these questions, so... College education?"

"Yes." Of course, that wasn't helpful either. "Mostly antique languages and mythology, though."

"Mythology?" Stressed or not, there was a sharpness in her eyes as she looked up. "As in demons and such?"

So she knew. Well, obviously. The outcasts were always the first to die. "Quite."

"And Alonna sent you here?" She shook her head, as if she had too late realised what that sounded like. "I would have thought she'd keep you."

He thought of the girl as she'd given him the address here. No, Alonna wouldn't have wanted to keep him around. She had him classified as a threat to her brother's safety, as if such a safety had existed in the first place. Maybe she had a point, but even if she didn't he wouldn't have wanted her to be the one to let him stay. She might be "just" a sister, but she was still too close to Gunn for his liking.

"Well, she didn't."

"I can see that. Can you cook?"

"Very little." And probably even less with one hand, although it wasn't anything he'd been inclined to try. He was making a lifestyle out of microwave meals.

With an exasperated sigh, she put her sheets down. "This isn't working."

Even though he agreed that he was hardly a suitable candidate for the job, he couldn't help feeling disappointed. He needed somewhere to work, some way to stop himself from going under.

"Forget the questionnaire. Are you a drug dealer, warlock or in any other way unsuitable company for adolescents?"

"Uhm... no?"

"Good! When can you start?"

He'd already been halfway up from the chair, ready to leave. Now he stopped, staring at the girl, trying to figure out what about this catastrophic interview had made her still want to hire him.

"Whenever you want me to."

"In ten seconds or less, then." She stood up, obviously relieved to get away from her desk. "I wasn't kidding, you know. This place needs every pair of hands it can get."

He waited for her to discover her faux pas. When she did, she got a small frown and then shook her head, dismissing it.

"Or single ones, for that matter. Eight dollars an hour, the more hours the better. Is that okay?"

"It's fine."

"Great. I'll show you around."

They left the tiny office and headed out into the main hallway, where a loud group of youths had gathered in a circle. Anne sighed deeply.

"Li, take that outside please."

Li, Wesley determined after a closer look, must be the boy in the middle of the circle, who was leaning his chin and elbow on the ground, his back arched up above his head and his legs split to the side. He gave Anne a cheeky wink, but made no move to do what she had told him.

"Li is a street performer," Anne told Wesley. "Which means he's to perform on the streets, not inside. Isn't that right, Li?"

The boy quickly turned himself the right way up and left the room. Wesley gave Anne a startled look, and although the faint whisper itself probably would have been incomprehensible, he could decode it with help from her lips' movements:

"I love it when that happens."

Angel kept talking to make Jhiera stay.

"What are your plans now?" he asked as she was about to leave, causing her to turn back again to explain it to him.

He didn't agree with her methods, nor did he even like her very much, but yet he kept her there all night. From time to time he could see her ridges glowing beyond the slope of a shoulder, but he chose to ignore it.

"So that's what I had in mind for the near future," she said, taking a sip of her coffee. She tilted her head and studied the cup, but made no grimace. "This is vile."

"Sorry. Can't taste it myself."

"Of course." She put the cup down and didn't bother with it anymore. "You never told me why a vampire would care about causes such as mine."

"It's a long story. Centuries long, actually. Starts with a gypsy curse, ends with visions from the higher powers..."

And it really didn't matter if he liked her or not, because she was there, and she listened, through the entire century-long story.

"He always put himself down. Even when he didn't have to. And I knew that was what he did, but I still never thought... From Buffy I might have expected it. Slayers are pretty much born to die. But to have your life in front of yourself and still.."

He licked his lips, lost in thought. He might not be able to taste coffee, but when it came to living, breathing creatures he had an excellent sense of taste, and the memory to match. Some of those tastes he would remember for years.

"And now it's all in my head."

"The visions?"

"It's more than the visions." He'd never explained the rest of it before, and searched for words. "It's like that portal of yours, only inside my thoughts. Letting me see the things on my mind."

She said nothing for a while, studying him carefully. At long last, she asked, "And if there are bad things on your mind?"

"Then I see bad things. But it's worth it."

"I don't understand." She seemed willing to try, though, her entire demeanour bearing witness of deep concentration. "Anyone can go through a portal. What if the wrong person does?" She shook her head. "My people have a better chance escaping their enemies in this world. What's in it for you?"

"I don't care about my enemies," he said. He'd been to Hell and survived, after all. And when you cut down to it, Hell was all about abandonment. "I can find my friends there."

"In your mind. Yes," she agreed.

She still didn't understand. Nobody could understand. And Angel didn't feel like talking anymore.

Alonna had never been in the habit of talking to herself. In her book, that was right up there with pushing your possessions around in a shopping cart. The definite sign that one had hit rock bottom after all.

If she had a problem, she'd talk to Gunn, and the other way around. But this time, Gunn was the problem, and he refused to listen.

He never mentioned Wesley or made any inquiries of his whereabouts. That should have been a relief, iff it had helped at all. But it hadn't – Gunn was more reckless than ever before.

"I don't know what else to do," she confessed to the stake she was carving from an uncooperative table leg. "I tried talking to him. I tried going behind his back. Face it, I've tried everything except possibly tying him up somewhere."

She giggled at the thought.

"And it's starting to look like a good idea."

She had to admit, he was getting too much for one person. The entire gang were like him, or wanted to be. They weren't a bad lot. With the right leader, they could be great, but Gunn wasn't the right leader. Maybe one day he could be. It depended on her shaping him right, and he was getting too damn strong for her.

"He still thinks I'm a little girl," she muttered. "I've got ten times his brains and he won't listen to a word I say."

The stake was sharp enough by now, but she kept carving. "I know, I know, I might have made a bad judgment call. But what the hell was I supposed to do?"

The stake broke. She had carved straight through it without even noticing. Letting out a curse, she dropped it to the floor and grabbed another one of the old table legs. They were made of hard wood, which was great in a fight, but an annoyance when you tried to sharpen them.

"I mean, even if I did go to Wesley, what's to say he could do anything? Or even want to. I mean, look at what he was like last time. All flashing old battle scars, practically egging Gunn on. As if he'd turn it all around just to get in my good graces? Please."

Besides, if Gunn wouldn't even take her advice, he wasn't going to listen to anyone else's. At least she didn't think so – or rather hope so, if she was honest to herself. Which she didn't particularly want to be.

"Get over yourself," she said sternly. Her pride wasn't the issue here. Her brother's life was.

"What's up?"

Startled to hear another voice than her own, her head jerked up, and she saw Gunn standing there, grinning at her behaviour.

"Stake's too cocky?"

"Yes," she said with a sigh, putting aside the knife and wood. "Stake's much too cocky. But I think it learned its lesson."

There was a sweet smell coming out of the TV room, and Wesley wasn't so square he didn't recognize it. Slamming the door open, he found half a dozen young men and women playing cards, but not a joint among the lot of them. Yet their far too innocent faces told him his nose wasn't deceiving him.

"What's up?" one of them asked, a slightly dazed smile showing up on his face. Wesley scowled. They never smiled at him.

"Alright," he asked coldly. "Where is it?"

"Where's what?" That was Manuel, a boy half a head shorter than Wesley, but with enough brains and muscle to make the others follow his lead. It had taken Wesley no more than an hour to learn how little Manuel thought of him, but he wasn't about to give in.

"The marijuana."

"We don't have none of that."

"Don't lie to me. I can smell it."

"You can smell a lie?" one of the girls asked, giggling. She sat on the couch, squeezed in along with three boys. Apart from her, there was just one other girl, sitting in an armchair with the boy called Li. She was supposedly seated in his lap, but Li had squiggled aside and was lying halfway under the coffee table. Not that he seemed to mind the position much, and knowing the way he could bend his body, why would he?

"I can smell the joint."

"Nose must be playing tricks on you." That was Manuel again, laying a card on the table. The gesture was nonchalant, but his tone of voice wasn't, and Wesley was beginning to feel threatened.

"I demand that you..."

Manuel jumped up from the sofa, and Wesley silenced, startled by the boy's energy. He soon found himself at the receiving end of an unfriendly shove – not a hard one, but serious enough in intent.

"No, I demand that you show us a bit of respect! Unless you have some kind of proof we did something wrong. Do you?"

"The smell is quite..."

"I'm not talking about a smell, I'm talking about proof. Do you have proof?"

Wesley looked over Manuel's shoulder at the people gathered around the coffee table. They all followed the scene with utter interest and no sympathy whatsoever.

"Not in the tangible sense, no."

"So you should apologise for the accusation, shouldn't you?"

"I most certainly..."

"Apologise!"

Manuel was now so close his toes touched Wesley's. The others remained where they were, but started cheering and shouting, louder and louder, until Wesley gave in.

"Very well. I apologise for my groundless accusation."

"Good." A smile tugged at the corner of Manuel's mouth. "Now applaud us."

Through the laughter that followed, Wesley could hear the girl in Li's lap protesting: "Oh, come on, that's just mean."

The protest would have seemed more genuine if it hadn't been accompanied by a giggle, but now it was mortifying. And obviously, Anne would pick this moment to show up in the doorway. She didn't say anything, just watched, but the laughter slowly died as more people noticed her. At long last even Manuel turned around to see what was going on, and he automatically took a step back at the sight.

Anne walked up to the coffee table and pushed it away, revealing a lot of legs and the joint Li had stuck between his bare toes. She picked it up, crushed it in her hand, and looked at him very calmly. He stood up, letting the girl slide off his lap. Soon they were all standing, looking very uncomfortable.

"Anne," said the girl from Li's lap, "if there's anything we can do..."

"Well, the bathrooms need cleaning. You might want to start with that."

They left the room, notably subdued. Only then did Anne turn to look at Manuel and Wesley.

"Manuel, if you want to pick up your things before you leave, now would be the time to do it. Now, if you'll excuse me –" she held up the crushed joint "– I'll go flush this away."

Wesley was so busy trying to slice bread that he didn't notice Anne until she started to talk.

"That's not working," she said, and he spun around, embarrassed.

"I didn't see you."

"Sorry. I was watching." She walked up to the work bench, frowning. "The bread keeps moving. What you really need is one of those things..." She pushed her palms together. "You know. For sawing. But I don't think we have one. Oh! I know."

She dived down to open a drawer, and fished out a grill fork that she stuck in the loaf of bread. Her academic attitude to the problem made it all slightly less humiliating, if not much, but he had absolutely no idea what she was getting at.

"Yes?" he asked, trying to remain polite. It hadn't taken him long at this place to find out politeness was important to her.

"Hold it in your mouth, and carve," she explained with shy triumph.

In his mouth? "But that's so..." Handicapped. Which was what he was, after all. He didn't want to do something like that with her watching, but then he didn't want to let her down either, so he gave it a try. The bread still moved, but not half as much. Good thing it wasn't a crumbly sort.

She smiled when the slice was done, but shook her head a little. "Could be better alternatives, I guess."

Yes. Two arms. But that wasn't what she was talking about, and he did appreciate the attempt. That didn't take the discomfort away, though, and so he changed the subject. "Did you want to speak to me?"

"Yeah." Now she was the one seeming uncomfortable, and he began to regret asking. "Listen, you're doing a great job here, and you're putting in so many hours..."

His stomach went cold. Was she firing him?

"You can't let the kids bully you," she said.

The relief was so great he almost laughed. But she was serious. And right, too, as much as he would like to deny it.

"I try to make them respect me," he defended himself. "They just won't."

"Of course not. I've heard you talking to them, you sound like a high school teacher." She looked downright apologetic as she continued, "That's just the sort of authority they're used to fighting. Keep it up and they'll never respect you."

She couldn't know about Sunnydale, but still he felt his face heat at the memory. Obviously, his failed authority was impossible to miss.

"It's like this," she said, sitting down on the table. "You don't need them. They need you. If they give you any trouble, you can just throw them out."

"I never would," he protested.

"Well, that's nice, but it's not really the point. They're still depending on your goodwill. So stop trying to get on their good side. I mean, you're not like that with me. Just relax, act yourself, and if you get mad at them, get mad."

"You don't understand..."

"Well, no," she said readily, her face colouring a little. "Except I do, a bit. I mean, about putting on an act, at least. And half of them know that, because they remember what I was like when I arrived."

"You were one of them?" He tried to imagine her as a waif and succeeded very easily. She was so young, and although she did her job well, there was no question about her being a bit on the undisciplined side. Like someone not quite used to what she was doing.

"I was. I'm not saying it's the same, and I'm well aware it isn't easy, but I don't think it's impossible. And, God, I sound like some lame motivational speech."

"Indeed." He had to smile.

She hopped off the table, sighing a little. "Anyway, I should go get some book keeping done. Or try to. None of it makes the least bit of sense."

"Do you want me to do it for you?" he offered, and she stopped short, grimacing a little.

"Thank you for the offer, but I've got to learn to think for myself. On the other hand, if you want to put that high school teacher attitude to some good use..."

"Just let me finish my sandwich," he said, "and I'll teach you how to do it."

She nodded. "I'll be waiting."

Angel thought he had gotten used to Darla talking to him through his mind, but he hadn't expected her to show up without warning.

"This place is just getting gloomier by the hour," she said, letting the blinds up. He automatically moved to pull them down again – but they were already down.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "I never entered my mind."

"No," she said very sweetly. "I did."

She walked slowly through the room, moving furniture that moved back at the blink of an eye. "You think I must wait for your permission? Shame on you, Angelus. You don't run the show anymore." She laughed a little. "Neither does Doyle. He never did, whatever you might have told yourself. Seriously, Angelus, you only knew the man for a few months. How much power do you think that gives him over your mind? You just wanted so hard to believe, didn't you? One wrong thought at the wrong time, and you grasped it with everything you had. Turning back reality like you tried to turn back time. Too bad it doesn't work that way."

"Go away," he said, as threatening as he could manage.

"Oh, don't worry." She pushed back a chair and sat down. For a moment he could see it still standing where it had been before. "I wouldn't take away your little playmate. I'm not that cruel." She pondered that. "Actually, I am, but I still won't."

"You're not real." The viciousness in his voice was for him as well as her.

"Of course not. But can you make me go away? Can you make me do anything I don't want to do?" Her eyes glittered with malignant glee. "I don't think so."

"What do you want with me?"

"I have a plan for you." She was standing up now, although he'd never seen her rise. Her hair was different, too – long, curly and in an elaborate style, like it had been when he first met her. "It's a quite beautiful plan, do you want to hear it?"

"No, I don't." He stormed out of the room, down the stairs, where Darla was waiting for him in his bedroom.

"Well, that's a shame." She tilted her head a bit. "You were always such a fine artist."

"You're not real. None of this is real."

"Oh, Angelus," she snapped, "stop stating the obvious. It's so dull when you do."

He should be able to ignore her, sit down on his bed, maybe read a book. But Darla had always been colourful, convincing, impossible to just brush off. In the end, he had been forced to stake her. And now, even that proved not to be enough.

"Do you remember those drawings you used to make? Death in coal." She shook her head slowly. "Of course, you can't have death in black and white. You need the blood. But you came close, so very close. After a hundred years of practice, you almost had it there."

He tried not to think about those drawings, but the memories kept returning, pieces of papers scattered over the room. A death for each paper – but not a paper for each death, there weren't enough of them for that. The people on the drawings were black and white, but instead of coal they were in flesh and blood, limbs slack in death.

"You never would have been as good if I hadn't turned you," she told him. "I gave you the time you needed for greatness."

Greatness? He had wanted greatness once, though it seemed insignificant now. But he'd never wanted a greatness painted in blood.

"Then again, your true talent wasn't in painting," Darla said, reading his thoughts. "I always loved the things you could do with torture and mutilation. You'd think a few hundred years in Hell would only have given you more ideas. I guess not."

She sat down on the bed and bobbed a bit. It was really too hard a bed for her to do that, but she had always preferred them soft.

"Do you remember that couple in Southampton?" she asked, chuckling a little. "Oh, you really knew how to make a rainy day in England more fun." She picked up a page from the floor, waved it slowly through the air to loosen the people on it until their dead bodies fell to the floor.

"But your real masterpiece was Drusilla. Your Mona Lisa. That was when I knew I had trained you well. I couldn't have done something like that even if I had tried for a hundred years."

She smiled, letting the paper go, and it went away along with the others. The floor looked strangely empty without them.

"Won't stop me from trying, of course."

"Now, wait a minute." For a moment forgetting his resolution to act as though he didn't notice her, he stepped up to grab her and tell her just what he thought of what she was saying.

That was when the pain hit, and he had to grab the bed instead, to prevent himself falling to the floor. She leaned over for a moment, and even through the pain and the pictures he could make out her voice.

"Oh, right. There's a family you might want to check up on. Forgot to tell you."

Her laugh accompanied him long after her image was gone.

At first, when Wesley lifted his glance from the vacuum cleaner to see who had entered, he thought Gunn had come to talk to him. But Gunn seemed as surprised to see him as vice versa.

"What are you doing here?"

"I work here," Wesley replied, turning off the vacuum cleaner. He would have expected Gunn to know that. Sure, Alonna didn't like him, but from that to keep his whereabouts a secret... He shook his head to clear the thoughts, just happy they were alone for the time being. "What brings you here?"

But apparently Gunn hadn't reached the point where he answered questions yet. "Work here? As a cleaning lady?"

"As anything needed, actually," Wesley said, trying not to take Gunn's comment as an insult. He wasn't ashamed of what he did. But it stung that Gunn might think he should be. "We don't have enough work force around here to sustain that kind of division of labour."

"And you're happy with that?"

Wesley unplugged the vacuum cleaner, keeping his eyes on the cord as it rolled up. Nothing about all this made him happy. Not the job, even if he was grateful for it. Not Anne's company or the young people he still felt a bit wary of. And certainly not Gunn standing there in all his glory, beautiful and clueless, and damn near cruel in his way of showing up just as things had reached some level of normal.

"Delighted. Feels smashing to be doing something again."

"Yeah, but this?" Gunn started walking around the room, touching things. "It's one thing with Anne... I mean, nothing against Anne, but she's... well, it's not like she's got a lot of options."

"And I do?" Wesley looked up, only to see Gunn looking away. Always these games with the glances. He half wished Gunn would just have a good stare and get it over with. This was tiresome and undignified, and it mixed too much pain into the thrill of seeing him.

"You're too smart for this place."

A compliment on the far side of cliché, but Gunn uttered it with such anger it was touching. It showed some lingering confidence in him, even after his humiliating confession of being anything but a hero.

"I don't like being bullshitted." Gunn raised his eyes again, staring straight into Wesley's.

"I can understand that," Wesley said, struggling against his shame to keep eye contact. "And I'm sincerely sorry if I..."

"Don't apologise. Jesus!" The anger seemed to border on contempt now, and Wesley felt like he'd been brought back to Sunnydale all over again. His first impulse was to react accordingly, bring out the Watcher persona in defence. But he recalled what Anne had said about high school teachers and refrained. It wasn't as if Gunn would believe in it, anyway.

"What do you think I should do then, if not apologise?"

"Who cares what I think? It shouldn't matter what I think!"

A teenage boy strolled into the hallway. He quickly retreated again after a look at Gunn's expression, but Wesley knew whatever they said after this would be out all over the centre. Gunn must have suspected it too, because he stopped shouting.

"Is there some place we can talk in private?"

"Around here? Not really. The only privacy you get is in the bathrooms."

"Fine, bathroom it is." And Gunn must be more familiar with the place than Wesley had thought, because he quickly located the nearest and hauled Wesley with him inside. The limited area forced him to downplay his actions a bit, for which Wesley was grateful. There was no mistaking the continued irritation, though.

"So why'd you do it?" Gunn was leaning against the wash basin, putting it in real danger of falling off the wall. If it had been anyone else, Wesley would have told them to stop.

"I suppose I wanted to make a good impression."

"How old are you, fifteen? I'm not your leader. Even if I was your leader I'd want you to play it straight with me. And someone your age... it's pathetic."

Wesley pulled down the toilet lid and sat down, although he still kept eye contact. Those disappointed eyes were almost impossible to stand, but that was why he had to meet them.

"I suppose it is."

Gunn bit his lip and looked away, and for a while neither of them said anything.

"I wanted to talk to you anyway. I'd been wondering where you got to. You figured out the plan with the nitrogen, and that was smart. It was resourceful. It was the sort of thinking I'd want from one of my own."

"Thank you."

"Shut up."

"Sorry." But there was something in Gunn's voice that inspired hope.

"I got a whole bunch of guys who can fight a vamp and do it good. There ain't one of them knows what to do with a demon he's never encountered before."

Wesley looked down into his lap, not in defeat, but because he felt ridiculously close to laughing.

"I've been thinking some about that, and I guess I could use a guy like that on the team. Whether you can fight or not... and I don't think that's a lost cause either."

Wesley disagreed, but he wasn't so sure of his own incapacity as he had been before he started working. Besides, he'd be insane to argue now.

"Is that what you want? You want to fight with us?"

"I would be honoured," he said. His voice was low, but Gunn evidently heard it, because he sat down so hard the wash basin protested.

"Okay. I'll be happy to have you. But any more of the bullshit, and you're out. I got to be able to trust you. So, can I?"

"Always," Wesley said, looking up. And no matter how embarrassing it was to be told off by someone so young, he saw how happy his answer made Gunn, and it made him happy in return.


	4. Living With Phantoms

Why newspapers had to be insanely large and fall apart when you opened them was something Wesley had never been able to understand. He ignored the loose pages falling to the floor, searching only for page five to read the full story of the headline that had caused his interest. There it was, "Seven year old boy suspect of arson", and certain details in the article suggested there was something off about it all.

A strangled noise from Anne's office made him dismiss the newspaper for the time being and head inside. One moment earlier, and the book that flew past him would have struck his face.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Anne's eyes were wide with horror. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"Not at all." A quick glance around the office was enough to determine that, whatever the reason, she was very upset. Papers were spread over the floor in a fashion that seemed to indicate she'd thrown them like she had the book. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said, the response as automatic as unconvincing.

"So what is this? A new form of exercise?" He picked up the book from the floor. Accountancy. "Book keeping still giving you trouble?"

"Only in the sense of being completely and utterly incomprehensible."

He cautiously stepped over the papers on the floor and sat across from her, putting the book down on her desk again. "Do you want me to help you?"

"No! No! Shit!" The outburst was very unlike anything he had seen from her so far, and he watched in uncomfortable silence as she hid her face in her hands. Finally it appeared again, heated and swollen with emotion. "Do you have any idea how tempting it is? Other people know how to do this. Smart people know how to do this. All I want to do is go 'hey let's call a friend!' Or a boyfriend, or a goddamn cult leader!"

"Cult leader?"

She closed her eyes. "Smart people don't have those." Opened again, they got a touch of guilt. "Oh, God, listen to me. And you... I mean, look at you, you've got problems of your own, and I'm just... You must think I'm whining over nothing."

"Feeling inadequate is hardly nothing." In truth, he found her outburst oddly comforting, even though he was aware of how unkind it would be to say such a thing. He hesitated, afraid to offend, but at long last asked, "Who told you that you were stupid?"

She laughed, in spite of the tears starting to form in her eyes. "That sounds Biblical. 'Who told you that you were naked?' and all that. I don't know. I told them. So they wouldn't be disappointed in me."

"Well, that's a method I never tried," he said, trying to lighten up the situation. "Of course, it does depend on the people you're with accepting excuses."

"And yours didn't?"

He shook his head silently.

"Thing is," Anne said when the silence got too heavy, "I keep thinking that if I was just smarter or better, somehow the accountancy fairy would show up and hand me enough money. Except there's no accountancy fairy, is there?"

"I wouldn't think so, no," he said absentmindedly. "Tooth fairy, of course, is another matter."

"There's a tooth fairy?"

"Plenty of them, actually. Hard-working category of women."

She stared at him wide-eyed, and then her eyes slowly narrowed. "You're messing with me."

"Yes. And you caught it. So you're not stupid."

"Not that stupid."

"Well, then." Since she was opening up, he felt he should too. "I tracked the wrong demon halfway across the country. That's a lot worse than having troubles with maths."

"True," she admitted, and although her face was still serious there was a glint of something less so in her eyes. "But not worse than being a vampire worshipper."

"You were a vampire worshipper?"

"Told you. Stupid."

"Well..." He was momentarily at loss of words, trying to find something to match that. "Yes. It's quite... On the other hand, I volunteered to work in Sunnydale." Realising she probably didn't realise why that would be bad, he added, "The Hellmouth."

"Is that what it is?" She didn't sound very surprised – more like she'd received an importan clarification. "Why on earth would you want to work there?"

"Well, it's an honour. The one Watcher in all of the Council to be chosen to mind the Slayer... and you have no idea what I'm talking about."

A casual nod contradicted his inference. "Slayer. Short blonde girl, Buffy something. Not easily forgotten."

The shock of having his different lives merge into one made him forget to breathe. If it had been Gunn he could have expected it somewhat, but Anne's way of life was mostly normal, and so he sat there until his lungs reminded him they needed oxygen to work.

"You know the Slayer?"

"Just a bit. She saved my life." Her blush was so slight Wesley might have been imagining it. "I don't know what a Watcher is, though."

"He trains the Slayer, tells her what to do."

"Telling that girl what to do?" She looked delighted and disbelieving at the same time. "And she did it?"

"Not really, no."

His answer was kept brief on purpose, but some of his deep failure must have shown through, because she gave him a sympathetic grimace.

"I can't think of anyone who could make her do anything she didn't want to do. Then again, I only met her twice." After a quick glance at him, she continued, "Vampire cult was the first time. She had a couple of guys with her. One of them... I can't remember what he looked like... but I remember him looming over me, calling me a fool... and I blathered something completely stupid about tolerance."

Wesley felt himself smiling, and looked down to hide it. He could see her saying it, and a certain smug superiority raised its ugly head.

"And the second time?" he asked.

"Here in L.A. There was this pack of demons who took people to a place..." She swallowed hard. "A place where time works differently. They let you work until you died of old age, and then they threw you back before anyone had a chance to miss you."

"How very Narnia," he said before he could stop himself.

"It didn't feel like Narnia."

"I understand that. I'm sorry."

She shrugged, and her gaze wandered away. When it returned to him, it was clear and calm. "You had your arm when you were with the Slayer, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"I wasn't sure before, but I figured it couldn't have been long. Sometimes you do things as if it's there."

"I know I do." It was a habit he was trying to break, but it wasn't easy. To him, his arm had gone invisible and intangible, but he couldn't wrap himself around the thought that it was gone.

"Not easy to do without."

"No."

"Do you get scared?"

Her voice was low and insubstantial. He understood how much the answer meant, and so he resisted his initial impulse to lie.

"All the time."

Wesley wasn't sure if finding Gunn alone was a relief or not. He didn't know most of the gang, but he hadn't disappointed them either.

When Wesley had first realised the gang made their own weapons he'd been shocked at the crudeness, but since then he had learned to admire the craftsmanship needed to create such items in a working place as simple as the one built up in their headquarters. That was where he found Gunn now, working on something and seemingly embarrassed to be disturbed, which there really was no reason for.

"Hello."

"Hi."

They watched each other silently for a while, and Wesley began squirming inside, hoping it didn't show.

"You said I should come, so I..."

"Yeah. I'm glad you're here. Come on." Gunn walked around the wood and metal he'd be working on, half hiding it with his body. That only made Wesley even more curious, particularly since he couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be. It resembled a wooden vice, but had spikes sticking out at one end.

"Is it some sort of weapon?"

"Uhm, no." Gunn looked down at the device and then slowly met Wesley's gaze. "It's for you, actually. Anne mentioned that you might need something like it." He continued with rising enthusiasm, but still somewhat cautious, as if his actions might be considered offensive. "This part over here is for cutting bread and meats and that kind of stuff. You adjust the size of it with the lever. I... uh... tested the lever, and it looks like it will work, but if you need me to I can change it. And the spikes over here are for small stuff like fruits and vegetables. You spike it, then slice it."

Far from being offended, Wesley marvelled at the amount of thought Gunn must have put into his work. And all that for him. Even assuming that Gunn had seen it as a challenge – and he quite obviously must have – it was still unbelievably generous of him.

"It's wonderful," he said, admiring the device. At home he could stick to fast food and microwave meals, but the food Anne bought for the shelter needed preparation. It wasn't that she made him do anything he couldn't, but she was much too busy to think of everything. So rather than admit defeat, he often tried to manage. And succeeded more often than he would have expected. But this would make it a lot easier.

"Thank you," he said, blinking repeatedly. "Goodness, it's dusty in here."

"Not really." But Gunn didn't press the issue any further. "Glad you liked it. I can make another if you want one at home."

"Are you sure it's not too much trouble?"

"Thinking it out was the part that took time. Making them's easy."

"Well, I would certainly appreciate it."

"Consider it done, then." Gunn grinned briefly and turned for the exit. "You ready to party?"

"Party?"

"You know. Train some. Prepare for future fighting."

"Party," Wesley repeated again. Good Lord. Not another one who saw the mission as his personal playground. But while he'd found the Slayers' attitudes abhorrent, he couldn't resist the glitter in Gunn's eyes. Mainly because this time that glitter included him. So he banished all treacherous thoughts to the back of his head, swallowed the lecture and nodded.

"Great! How about we start with some physical? We can swap notes on the latest demon happenings after - I got a few things I wanted to quiz you about."

"Sounds... reasonable." He wasn't too keen on the idea of physical training, but he couldn't deny that he needed it. "I'm not in very good shape, though."

Gunn's gaze drifted away. "That's okay."

Wesley had referred to his clumsiness and lack of fitness, not to his handicap, but if that was what Gunn thought this was about, he didn't mind. At least it was a legitimate reason to be pathetic. Still, he was growing heartily tired of those averted glances. And even if Gunn at some point would cease to be embarrassed, there were still the five billion other people to deal with.

Alonna sat in the truck watching the entrance of the subway tunnel and the people going in and out. She'd seen the boys leave some time ago and now she was waiting for Gunn, but all she could see was an increasing number of policemen, judging from whose behaviour the threat was over. She couldn't understand what was taking him so long.

Finally she saw him coming and started the engine. He dropped down on the passenger seat, clearly dismayed, and she understood her guess had been right.

"Dead?"

"Yeah." It was practically a growl. His head jerked up when Alonna turned the car around. "What are you doing? We can't leave!"

"Why not?" she questioned, although she stepped on the brake automatically. "You said it's dead."

"Yeah, but Wesley hasn't seen it yet."

"Why would Wesley have to look at a dead demon?"

"To identify it, in case there are more."

She pursed her lips, but didn't reply. It wasn't so much the thought of waiting for Wesley that bothered her; they had called him away quite abruptly from the shelter, after all, and it was only common courtesy. And in case there were more of those demons around of course they had to know how to deal with them, but it didn't mean he had to look so goddamn pleased with the thought.

Gunn was squirming around in the passenger seat like a little kid, trying to look in all direction at once, even half climbing out the window. At long last, he gave a relieved sigh and stilled. "There's the bastard now."

Turning around, she saw Wesley approaching the truck, clearly puzzled. "What's going on?"

"Police killed the demon," Alonna replied.

"I see. Well, thank you for staying to inform me."

Gunn opened the door and hopped out, grabbing Wesley's wrist. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"To check out the corpse."

Wesley gave a quick glance at Alonna before Gunn dragged him away. She shrugged. There wasn't any harm in taking a look, as long as they stayed away from the police. And it calmed her a little that Wesley had sought confirmation from her; gave her hope that she would be able to talk to him.

They took longer than Gunn had last time, and when they came back Gunn was sulking worse than before. "What the hell do you mean, benign?"

"Well, I can't say for certain before I've taken a look at the books," Wesley said, getting into the truck and scooting towards Alonna so Gunn would fit in too. "But from what I can tell, it does seem to be from a benign species. Perhaps something provoked it."

"Yeah. A whole bunch of people who weren't dead."

"I'm obviously not saying that what happened was in any was excusable..."

Gunn slammed the door shut. From the outside. "Forget it. I'm off hunting."

"Gunn!" Alonna protested, but he was already stalking off. She groaned loudly. "Fantastic."

"I'm afraid he's disappointed in me."

"Yeah, well, only for preventing him from getting killed. Which brings me to the next topic."

Wesley had apparently lost all interest in what she was saying, and was staring out the window. Not that there was anything of interest to see. They still hadn't gotten the demon out, just a bunch of passengers in various conditions. A female cop was talking to a guy in dark clothes who seemed more together than most of the others.

"Hey, crip, are you listening to me?"

That caught his attention. "What did you say?"

It was no use going about this cautiously. She'd already tried that. "Do you want my brother to die?"

"What? Of course not!"

"And you agree that's a likely outcome the way he does things?"

Wesley frowned, and she felt ready to scream. If he dared to deny it, so help her, she was going to hit him. To prevent that from happening, she continued speaking: "He comes out practically pouting because someone else killed the demon. Is that what you call a healthy attitude?"

"Perhaps he is a bit over-eager," Wesley admitted in a tone indicating even that was too much criticism for his liking. "But someone has to do it."

"I'm not arguing that, I'm just..." She silenced, staring straight ahead, her hands squeezing the steering wheel in murderous intent. "Why does someone have to do it?"

"What do you mean?" It was clear he found the idea mind-boggling, and although she agreed with him, she also felt sorry for him in a way she never had before. Had he ever had the chance to deny his responsibility for all the weird things that were going on? There were, after all, people out there who didn't even know such things existed. Maybe to him, the world was once and for all set into the people who saved and the people who were saved, and he was in the first category. Through no outstanding skill, judging from what she'd seen of his training sessions with Gunn.

"Why does someone have to do it? What difference does it make?"

"What difference?" If the situation hadn't been so serious, she might have laughed at his horrified expression. "It's a question of life and death!"

"So it's about saving people."

"Of course!"

She gestured across the dashboard. "Those people were saved. Shouldn't that make him happy?"

The point evidently hit home, because he calmed down instantly, and his voice was low when he replied, "Yes. Yes, it should."

"But it doesn't."

He shook his head without a word.

"It's all a game to him. He scores by killing the demon and saving the damsel in distress. Losing just means trying harder next time, and hell, he might even have a few extra lives before it's game over."

His eyes didn't meet hers. "What do you want me to do?"

"You know it's not true. And what's more, you can prove it." She hesitated. This was none of her business, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to stop talking. Concern for Wesley's feelings just wasn't an issue compared to her overwhelming desire to save her brother if he was salvageable at all. "I'm not trying to sound callous, but if it's your pride or his life, I want you to choose him first."

There was a long silence, and she feared she had said too much.

"I would. Don't ever think I wouldn't."

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's none of my business."

"If it's not yours, then whose is it?" He spoke with difficulty, and again she felt genuine sympathy for him, not just for what he had been through. "You're right. There are things in my life that are... difficult to take. That perhaps Gunn ought to hear. If I could make him listen."

There wasn't anything funny about this, really, but she had to laugh. "I'm not sure anyone could make him listen. But just having someone on my side makes it a whole lot easier. You are on my side, aren't you?"

"No, I'm on his side. I just happen to think it's the same one. Not that..."

"...he would agree with you," she filled in along with him. "Definitely not. But in the long run, you'd be doing him a favour."

"Small consolation if he hates me."

She grinned. Seeing him in her position shouldn't make her so goddamned satisfied, but it did.

Gunn hooked his axe into Wesley's and pulled, dropping his opponent's weapon clanking to the floor. That tended to be the way most of their training sessions ended, but it took longer for every time, and all in all, Gunn was satisfied. Many of the guys had joined the gang without knowing much more than which end of a stake was which. Wes was decent enough with the stabbing and slashing, and he had a wicked aim. Could probably have been good with a crossbow if he'd had both arms to reload. Now one shot would be all he had, and that wasn't enough against the big stuff.

He was much too showy, though. Fighting for style, not to win, and that made him nervous and clumsy when he didn't have to be. At first, Gunn had commented on it, but Wesley hadn't seemed to understand what he was talking about, so he probably wasn't doing it deliberately. Chances were the style had been taught to him along with the moves and he'd have to unlearn it one bit at a time.

There was nothing wrong with the guy's determination, though. Long after his stamina had worn out, he'd keep going at it, too stubborn to admit he was beat. Gunn had been forced to learn to look out for the signs, and not to trust a "nothing".

He saw a sign now, as Wesley blanched and drew back against the wall, in pain, not in fear – but why, for Christ's sake? He hadn't even touched the guy, and yet Wesley's face was tight and he leaned heavily on the wall.

"Wes, are you okay?"

"It's noth..." And then evidently he changed his mind, because instead of trying to deny it he bit his lip and admitted, "Actually, it's my arm."

Gunn took Wesley's hand, worried that maybe the clashing of the axes had twisted the limb. Wes looked uncomfortable, but he didn't move away.

"Not that one."

That didn't make sense, because Wesley didn't have... oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. He'd heard about these things, but he'd never had to deal with it before, and he had no idea what was needed of him.

"You mean like phantom pains, right?"

"Yes." Wesley's voice was calm, but it was pretty obvious he still hurt a lot. "Quite a bit like phantom pains, actually."

"Shit. I'm sorry." He realised he was still holding Wesley's hand and let go. Wesley unbuttoned his shirt a bit and slipped his hand in, rubbing his shoulder as if to get rid of muscle aches. But these things were imaginary, weren't they? Although it sure didn't seem that way from Wesley's reaction. Gunn got a glimpse of lumpy skin going from ribcage to shoulder. It looked goddamned awful, and yet Gunn couldn't tear his eyes away. He stood there staring at the scars and at Wesley's chest that was much too pale, much to thin, and evidentally cold since the nipple was all hardened and surrounded by goosebumps. He took a step forward. "Can I do something?"

Wesley straightened up and moved away a bit, trying to regain posture without much success. "I doubt it."

But Gunn knew he couldn't just stand there looking, and so he reached out, even though he didn't really want to, and touched that shoulder. The scarred skin felt weird to touch, particularly knowing that this part of Wesley's body should normally be unreachable. He rubbed carefully and heard Wesley draw his breath.

"Does that help?" he asked. "It doesn't hurt, does it?"

"Yes."

He started to withdraw his hand, but was caught in a firm grip.

"Yes, it hurts, but not because of anything you do. And yes, it helps."

He kept rubbing, trying to figure out what it would be like to have a whole part of you missing, and be touched where it used to be. It wasn't anything he could imagine properly, but then again, Wesley didn't seem like he'd mind being asked.

"What does it feel like?"

Wesley closed his eyes and leaned his head up a bit. "Right now? Like it's trying to twist itself into a corkscrew."

"Ow," Gunn said automatically, and Wesley laughed. It actually sounded cheerful, too.

"'Ow' is rather accurate, yes. But most of the time it isn't like that. Just... like having a leather glove that's too small and stiff. And goes all the way up to my shoulder."

That jarred him a bit. He'd heard of phantom pains, but never of phantoms that were just there.

"So you feel it all the time?"

Wesley nodded, his eyes still closed.

"But then–" He was still holding that shoulder, not even properly rubbing it anymore, and Jesus Christ, what was he thinking? He didn't want to touch this stuff. Except he did, because he had been curious from day one and hadn't so much as seen it before. But that didn't stop this from being majorly messed up. "–What does it feel like when I do this?"

A smile came over Wesley's face, and his eyes finally opened again. "Like you're touching inside of me."

Gunn was incredibly grateful Wesley couldn't see what he was thinking, and he hurried to ask, "Does it move, too?"

Wesley actually blushed, which made Gunn wonder just what sort of tricks that cut-off arm was up to. Not that he'd ask. No BS was one thing, no privacy quite another.

"I can move it a bit, yes."

The use of 'can move', a voluntary thing, made Gunn wonder about that blush even more. And that in his turn made him disgusted with himself. He withdrew rather abruptly, reaching back with his hands to wipe them off on his pants, but halfway there he managed to stop himself and instead stuffed his hands down his back pockets.

"So. When you're feeling better, we can get back to it." Maybe that was a bit on the harsh side. "Or you could rest, if you'd prefer."

"Gunn."

The one word was enough to make him stop and turn back, watching Wesley, who smiled in an almost apologetic fashion.

"You know... this is me."

"Yeah, and this is me," Gunn said flippantly. He had a feeling that his foot had built permanent residence in his mouth, and although he knew what Wesley was trying to say he couldn't think of a more proper response. He didn't want what he'd just seen to matter, and yet it did. If he hadn't come to like Wesley, it would have been easier. If he could have continued to believe that Wes was some kind of a hero, or if he'd never been tricked at all. But this was too hard. Knowing what a coward Wesley could be and at the same time having to notice that it wasn't the fear of someone who had never been in pain. And now this. This courage, because that was the only thing to call it.

He was braver than Wesley, big time. And yet these things he'd found out, they were Wesley's life, and say what you wanted about English, but he took it well. Gunn wasn't nearly naive enough to think Wes wasn't bothered, but at least he coped, and that was an awful lot, all things considered.

It bugged him that Wesley could cope with living with it, when he couldn't even cope with knowing about it.

"To hell with all this," he said. "You wanna grab a few beers with me?"

Wesley smiled, and things went back to slightly less freaky. "Sure."


	5. Benign

BENIGN

Wesley cut through the dead demon's skin and then put down his knife to take out the gland. He paused for a moment, turning it in his hand, studying the colours and texture. There seemed to be nothing abnormal about those things. The size was another matter entirely. It was big enough to play cricket with.

"Let me guess," Gunn said, crouching down beside him for the most brief of moments before returning to his previous pacing. "Benign?"

"Supposedly, yes," Wesley said, scowling at the carcass. "You know, its glands are swollen."

"Demon mumps?"

"It could be a disease." Wesley ignored the cheerful sarcasm in Gunn's voice. "All things considered, though, I'm more inclined to believe the source of this chemical imbalance is artificial, perhaps some sort of drug."

"Because all we need is demons on dope."

Wesley smiled a little. Gunn always had such a refreshing perspective on things.

"So, how many of these are there?"

"I'm not sure." Wesley's brow furrowed as he calculated an answer. "We've encountered four so far, but I'm sure that if there were many more we would have heard of it..."

"No, I meant 'benign' demons." The grimace Gunn made at the word clearly suggested that he didn't fully embrace the concept. "How many altogether?"

"Oh. Well, I couldn't possibly estimate the number of individuals – most of them stay hidden for obvious reasons – but I'd say about a hundred separate species."

That stopped Gunn in his tracks. "A hundred? Are you kidding me?"

"Not at all. Of course, it depends on how you define your terms. A pixie, for example, might not be considered a demon by some people. Of course, I didn't include pixies in my estimation anyway, since they are definitely not benign. In fact, they can be rather aggressive, although a pixie bite is certainly not severe enough to cause any concerns."

He was rewarded with a wide grin. For some reason, Gunn found it amusing when he spoke like an encyclopaedia, and he wasn't reluctant to use that fact.

"So how do we know which ones are which?"

"We don't," Wesley said simply. "If these cases prove anything, it's that you can never be certain when it comes to demons. And if they're out there killing people, I say killing them is a fairly good idea."

"Yeah, well, just warn me if there's a pixie killing spree." There was briefly silence as Wesley continued working, but soon Gunn gave a deep sigh. "How long is that going to take you?"

"Well, I'm sorry, but I'm used to doing this sort of examination in a laboratory. It's quite different on the street with a kitchen knife."

"I'll give you a laboratory on your birthday," Gunn said glumly. "After I rob a bank."

"Thank you, Gunn."

The innocence in his voice was met with a growling sound from Gunn that made Wesley's heart tick just the slightest bit faster. Gunn was very vocal about his displeasure with this entire situation, but he hadn't left with the others as he easily could have.

The sound of a cellphone interrupted Wesley's thoughts. He looked down at his slimy hand and grimaced. When he started working, he'd taken off his jacket specifically so he wouldn't get it all slimed up. And he wasn't sure demon glands worked well with cell phone circuits.

"Would you mind...?"

"Got it," Gunn said, fishing the cell phone out of Wesley's jacket. "Yeah, what is it?" he asked the caller. "Do I sound like Wesley? He's a bit busy right now. Yeah? What did he do? Okay, fine, what do they think he did? Really? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, I'll tell him. No, it won't take long. Okay. Take care."

Wesley stopped working and looked with interest at Gunn, who turned off the phone and carefully replaced it in the jacket pocket. There weren't all that many people who had reason to call him, and "take care" limited the range even more. "Anne?"

"Yeah." Gunn scratched his neck. "One of the kids got arrested. Boy named Li? Seems someone knocked over a convenience store last night, and the cops picked him up this morning. She wants you to talk to the lawyers."

Wesley stood up slowly and almost wiped his hand off on his jeans before he stopped himself. "Of course. But why doesn't she do it herself?"

"She's checking out his alibi." Gunn had a very strange expression.

"Do I really want to know?"

"Apparently, he was at a demon brothel."

Wesley stepped into the police station and spotted the lawyer right away as the only one wearing a suit, and a remarkably classy one at that. He got a glimpse of himself in a reflecting window and blinked at the difference. A green sweater currently well earning its name with its left sleeve pinned up, jeans stiff with demon grime, second-hand leather boots with copper buckles. At least the jacket still looked new.

"You must be Wesley Wyndham-Pryce."

The man's voice, familiar from a few times when he'd answered the phone at the shelther, told him he'd guessed right. He reached out his hand. "Hello, Mr. McDonald."

Lindsey McDonald was younger than he'd have expected, and his smile was wide and casual, showing no surprise at Wesley's appearance. They found a small waiting room, with sunken, worn armchairs and a strange smell but at the very least empty, and sat down. Wesley was the first one to speak.

"So, I understand that the police suspect Chen Li of being involved in a robbery?"

"Not quite." Lindsey's smile was replaced by a troubled expression. "The clerk was shot at the robbery and died an hour ago."

Wesley slowly sank to a chair. "Oh, dear." Although he didn't think Li capable even of robbery, much less murder, the situation was grave whether he was guilty or not. "On what ground was Li arrested?"

"There's an assisting clerk," Lindsey said. "He was outside when he heard the gunfire, so he went in to see what was going on. According to his testimony, he saw a 'Jap boy' in black clothes jump out a window. The window was open already, but it's pretty high up. It would take some agility."

"Which Chen Li doubtlessly has." Li was Chinese, not Japanese, but it was quite likely that the clerk couldn't tell the difference. "Is that all they have on him?"

Lindsey made a see-saw motion with his hand. "They did a line-up, but didn't get anything definite, although he was one of the guys the clerk thought it might be. So the evidence isn't overwhelming, but then, neither is his alibi."

A demon brothel was probably the worst alibi you could have, and Wesley was fairly certain that Li wouldn't try and use it. And, obviously, any false alibi would be a bad one if made in the spur of a moment. "What did he say?"

"That he was with a woman. He wouldn't tell her name, though."

Natural enough, considering what that woman might look like. But something in Lindsey's voice hinted that he knew more than he was saying.

"Well," said Wesley, "such a woman might not wish to show herself in public."

They exchanged glances, and Wesley knew his suspicion had been correct. That didn't exactly ease his mind. Not everyone who knew about demons had a healthy attitude about them – and in this case, he wasn't even sure what a healthy attitude was. A policewoman walked past the room, and the two men leaned closer to keep the conversation low.

"But surely, even without an alibi he couldn't possibly be convicted on such poor evidence?"

"Probably not. Still, lying to the police and getting caught isn't a good thing."

"What if he was provided with another alibi?" Wesley threw a quick glance at the observation window to see if the policewoman had left. She had, but thinking about her made him half remember something that he had a feeling was important. He frowned.

"Like what?"

Wesley tore away from the elusive memory. This was important as well. "Well, what if I said he was with me?"

There was hardly a hint of change in Lindsey's expression, but Wesley still realized the implications of his suggestion before the lawyer said, "Trust me, this isn't worth losing your job over."

In spite of his heated cheeks, Wesley found it in himself not to stammer. "But certainly people wouldn't assume..."

"He said he was with a woman. Why would he lie unless the truth was worse?" Lindsey's face and voice were both quite serious, but Wesley still felt as if he'd just been exposed to an embarrassing prank. He fought very hard to resist that feeling and the stiffness that went with it. The man had a point. He'd need a better story than that, and for a moment he toyed with the idea of providing Li with a woman. He quickly dismissed it. The only woman among his close acquaintances who might sleep with a teenager for reasons beside money was Alonna, and he could just imagine the look on her face if he were to ask her. No, that alibi had to go. If a new one was to be provided, it might as well be by Wesley. All he needed was a good reason for Li to lie.

"He was helping me," he suggested as the thought popped up. "And I asked him not to tell anyone."

"Helping you do what?"

Wesley's thoughts raced, and he recalled his bedroom floor, overgrown with grime that he'd have cleaned away long ago if the mere thought of moving furniture hadn't scared him off. "Cleaning the floor."

"But why on earth would you...?" Lindsey started, clearly puzzled.

Wesley squared his chin and met Lindsey's gaze, preparing for the realisation he knew would come. And there it was, the slight shift in Lindsey's eyes, the mix of emotions he'd learned to recognise.

"All right, then," Lindsey finally said, grabbing his notebook. "He helped you out and neither of you told anyone. Fair enough. But lying about it to the police?"

"He's not a very bright young man."

Lindsey nodded slowly. "It'll do."

Wesley knew as well as he did that the story would sound unlikely, but he also knew that it wouldn't matter. Neither the police nor the shelter would want to question his honesty on such a matter; not to mention that he had Anne on his side, and to all practical concerns, she pretty much was the shelter.

"I'm glad that's settled, then," he said, grateful for the opportunity to rise from the seedy chair. It struck him that he'd have to go clean his floor, and fast, before anyone checked his story. The dread at the thought made his head spin. Just pulling the bed out would be... Asking for help was out of the question. Whatever he had told Lindsey, he would never submit himself to that sort of humiliation willingly. Doing it himself was quite embarrassing enough. "Shall I tell this to the police?"

"Yes, let's. I hope they'll be satisfied."

On the way out of the police station, Wesley suddenly remembered where he'd seen that policewoman, and he turned around so quickly he got bumped by the door. Oblivious to the smart of a new bruise, he hurried back inside, ready to look through every corridor and office he had to until he found her. Fortunately, he didn't have to. She was leaving her office just as he rounded the corner, and he dashed over before she could close the door.

"Excuse me?"

A quick glance down, then back to his face. "Yes?"

"This may sound strange, but some time ago I saw you talking to an acquaintance of mine. A man named Angel. And I was wondering..."

His voice trailed off as he saw her reaction to the name.

"I haven't got the faintest idea what you're talking about."

Her voice was oh so cold, and he couldn't imagine what Angel had done to infuriate her like that.

"Please," he said, not certain why it mattered so much to him. He wouldn't have thought that he'd ever want to meet anyone from Sunnydale again, not after he'd made such a fool of himself there. But for some reason, knowing that Angel was in Los Angeles and not meeting him was worse. The thought of perhaps one day bumping into him on a mission or by the shelter, old life meeting new in a manner that could only be humiliating – no. Better to take the bull by its horns. "I really do need to find him."

She looked at him for a moment in silence, her light eyes full of suspicion. Then she sighed and let the door fall shut. "Can we take this outside?"

"Of course."

He followed her outside until she halted on the sidewalk and spun around to face him. The sun stung his eyes and he brought up his hand to shade them. It certainly wasn't privacy she wanted, since the street was full of people.

"I don't know who you are," she said, "and I don't care. But I do know that Angel is trouble, and I don't want you to ever mention him to my face again. Is that clear?"

"So you do know him."

"Unfortunately – yeah."

She was ready to step inside again, but he hurried past her, standing in front of the already opened door. "Will you tell him I came looking for him next time you see him? My name is Wesley Wyndham-Pryce."

"I won't see him," she said, and her voice was convincing enough.

"But if you do, will you tell him?"

"I will."

She brushed him aside without any effort and stepped through the door. Even her retreating back looked offended.

"Please," Angel said, stopping short outside the police station when he saw a shadow come forth from the dark, lit up in the flashes of headlights from passing cars. "Not now."

"I'd have thought you'd be happy to see me." The Irish voice was reproachful in a manner laden with humour.

"Not now. At home. Not now."

"Would you prefer me?"

Angel shook his head at Darla, who stood in front of the door in her red dress and with the half-drained body of a coach driver in her arms. He remembered that coach driver. Of course he did. He remembered everyone.

"Not now. I need to explain to Kate." He clung to the one thing he knew. "I need to explain to Kate. Kate... Kate has to understand. It's important. It's important I explain to her."

Darla was laughing at him, and in desperation he turned to Doyle. "Yes. Come in then. Just keep her away."

"Of course I will." Then there was no more Darla, and Angel knew that Doyle would keep his promise. He was reliable that way. If the others were stronger than him, he'd say so, not pretend just to calm Angel down.

"Good. It's okay. I'll talk to Kate, and it's okay."

He stepped inside, and with an effort of mind ignored Doyle. It always pained him to do that, felt like betrayal all over again, but he didn't really have a choice.

By now he knew the way to Kate's office as well as he knew the way to his own apartment, and he was also beginning to recognise the vitriol that showed up on her face when she saw him enter.

"Kate."

"Get out."

"Kate, please talk to me." He took a few steps closer, encouraged by a green-eyed wink from across the room. "I tried to help him. If he'd only let me in..."

"Let in a madman?" she asked. "A vampire madman having conversations with an invisible woman?"

He could feel his eyes drifting off to where Doyle was standing. Kate's narrowed.

"Is she there now?"

"No!" The denial came out fierce. At times the thought of Darla alone was enough to bring her out, and he worried that it would happen this time – but it didn't. He sighed with relief. "She's not here. Didn't hear us."

Kate gave a snort that was anything but happy. "Angel, listen to yourself! Or better yet, listen to me. You have to go see a shrink or something."

"And tell him what?" Angel asked, wry humour fighting desperation. "That I'm a vampire who have trouble with my prophetic visions?"

Kate watched him for a long time, but evidently she couldn't deny the truth of what he'd said. "It's not just going away."

"I know." And the times when he didn't mind so much were few and far between these days.

"There was this guy asking for you earlier today," she said, and at first his mind tried to make a connection between that and the people in his head, until he realised that she'd said it to avoid talking about the people in his head. "One-armed, British – looked like trailer trash and talked like Anthony Hopkins."

She clearly expected the description to ring a bell, but it didn't, and he shook his head. "Did he give a name?"

"Yeah, he did, but I can't remember. William? Warren? Something like that, and then a thirty-character surname with a hyphen in it. Young guy, glasses. And human, I checked on that."

The description still didn't tell him anything, although "glasses" and "British" left enough connotations in his brain to suspect that perhaps the council of Watchers were onto him. He had no idea why they would bother, though. He hadn't killed anyone, and he had no intentions of getting back together with Buffy. Most of the time he was fighting demons on the street or in his head – and if the latter had increased lately, that wasn't exactly something the Council would know.

"Thanks for telling me."

She didn't respond to that, even with 'you're welcome', and there was an awkward moment when they stood silently on opposite sides of her busy desk, watching each other. There were lines in her face that hadn't been there when they met, signs of aging that he regretted giving to her, and yet he envied her all the same. Living wasn't easy, he knew that much, but it was better. It had to be.

"Go see a shrink," she said, her voice harsh and tired. "Or a witch. Or anyone, as long as it's someone."

"I will."

He figured she knew it was a lie just as much as he did.

Wesley walked slowly across the main rooms of the shelter, looking for Anne. He was aching all over. His apprehension concerning the problem of the furniture had proven quite correct.

Stepping into Anne's office, he soon forgot most of his pains. Anne was sitting in her office chair, which wasn't entirely expected on a Tuesday afternoon, whn she usually had work to do elsewhere. But more importantly, Gunn was sitting on the bed with Wesley's jacket across his lap, and that wasn't expected at all.

"Hey. You took your time."

"I had some business to take care of." He tore his eyes from Gunn and found Anne's looking rather too innocent. "I told you that on the phone."

"Yes," she agreed. "And I told Gunn. I dare say he didn't listen."

Damn the woman, she was having too much fun with this. And he was too tired to be bothered. He sank down on a chair. "I hope Li is all right?"

"He's fine. You just missed him." Anne rose. "Well, Gunn, since you've got your company and it seems I'm not getting any work done in here, I'm gonna return to the living room. Wes, if you feel up to clocking in later, that would be appreciated."

For some reason, that caused Gunn to glare at her, and she held up her hands in a 'don't shoot me' gesture as she backed out from the office. Wesley turned to Gunn, puzzled, but certain an explanation would come soon. Instead, he got a glare rather similar to the one Anne had received.

"What on earth...?"

"You went directly from work to demon hunting last night, right?" Gunn stood up in a swift, nearly hostile motion. "You don't need to answer that, because I know you did. And then this morning you head out to save some punk from prison, and when you finally go home you sure don't sleep, because quite frankly you look like hell. In fact, if I'm to make an educated guess – and I may not have your level of education, but I'm allowed to make those – I'd say you've been taking care of that alibi you gave the kid. Pushing about furniture and who knows what. Am I right?"

"Well, yes." Having Gunn towering over him like this was highly unpleasant, but he didn't have the energy to stand right now. "I fail to see what..."

"How fucking stupid are you?"

Wesley barely had time to catch his jacket before it hit him in the face. He adverted the attack and stared at Gunn in shock. "What are you doing?"

"Go home and don't come back until you've slept for at least seven hours."

Part of him found Gunn's bossy attitude very offensive and wanted to remind the young man that he was actually the elder here, and knew very well what he was doing. That part didn't stand a chance, however, compared to the part that delighted in the concern he heard in his friend's voice.

Both parts lost to practicality. "I need the money." He didn't elaborate his answer to include the demon hunting, because Gunn knew as well as he did that it was something he simply couldn't give up.

"You need it so badly you can't give up one day of work?"

Wesley didn't answer that, because obviously he could. Logically, he knew very well that a day or two wouldn't matter, and that he had to take care of his schedule himself, because all Anne did was check that she had someone working every day, and if that someone happened to be him all seven days of the week she wouldn't notice.

Logic made no difference in the middle of the night. He'd been unemployed and broke once and dreaded going there again, handicapped and thus even less likely to get employed. It wasn't as if he was hoarding, just making sure to stay head over water and able to pay his bills even if something unexpected came up. A hospital bill, for example. Lord knew that he'd been inviting them lately.

He'd been able to get a good place and lose some debts with the money from the motorcycle. One day would make very little difference in his ability to pay the rent. But he couldn't bring himself to be idle.

"Forget it," Gunn said, heading for the door. Surely he wasn't leaving already? Wesley shifted in his chair, ready to get up and stop him, but Gunn waved impatiently for him to stay. "Stay where you are. I'll be back in a minute."

That should be comforting, but wasn't because he didn't know what Gunn was about to do during that minute. He fidgeted, nervous, and finally got up, weary but determined, to see what Gunn was up to.

Of course Gunn would choose that moment to return, the two of them nearly bumping into each other.

"You're just not taking anyone's advice, are you?" he asked, but his voice wasn't as harsh as before. On the contrary, he sounded cheerful.

"Well, I simply..."

"Whatever," he interrupted. "I talked to Anne. You get three hours pay for getting that kid out."

Wesley's chin dropped. "Huh?" Oh, his teachers should hear him. After all that time forcing him to eloquence.

"She told you to do it. That makes it work, and work you should be paid for." Gunn shrugged. "I know it's not the same as a full day, but it's something. Go home and rest."

"But my shift..." Wesley argued feebly. "I couldn't just abandon her."

"You won't. I'll take your shift." Gunn grinned, presumably at Wesley's expression, which he was much too stunned to keep in control. "What? It's not exactly brain surgery."

"But you shouldn't... not for my sake."

"Sure I should." Gunn's voice was softer than he'd ever heard it, so soft it made his treacherous heart skip a beat. "You're one of mine now, remember?"

And he loved that word "mine", though he hated the plural that put him in among the rest, perhaps higher than Bobby and Rondell if he was lucky, but certainly much lower than Alonna. Someone Gunn would want to help in a way not unlike the way Wesley had just helped Li: out of duty and compassion and even a genuine like, but nothing near love.

Nothing near enough.

And it surprised him that he was so greedy, that this sacrifice – small, perhaps, but significant – didn't make him fumble and stutter with gratitude but rather demand more, a higher place on the scale, that offensive plural taken away. In his thoughts he grabbed Gunn, pressed himself close to him, caressed that dark, smooth head, and he did it with his left hand so he wouldn't be tempted to try it in reality.

He didn't really want to approach Gunn like that. He wanted Gunn to approach him like that. But even in his fantasies, he couldn't bring himself so far from reality. He'd never been very imaginative.

"Thank you," he said, voice low but surprisingly calm. He put on the jacket Gunn had flung at him, recalling in a distant sort of way how embarrassed he'd once been to do that in front of people.

"Go. Now."

If Gunn had just shrugged the thanks off, like a normal person, there could have been some hope for Wesley's mind to keep his heart together, but these impolite, eager words were too much for him. He mumbled a goodbye and headed out, knowing he had to do something about this foolish crush and do it soon. Things just couldn't be allowed to continue like this.

"How come I can kill you, but I can't make you leave?" Angel's voice was laden with desperation, and the sight of Darla's gloating game face made him want to laugh even as his eyes filled with tears.

Those deep red lips curled into a grin. "Now, is that any way to respect your sire?"

She approached him, and he drew back, wary to touch her. But Darla was never one to be put off by such things.

"I'm family, stupid," she said, leaning close to him. "Family doesn't leave. Not ever. Isn't that right, sweetheart?"

If he'd had breath he would have lost it then, seeing the small vampire child standing by Darla, held in the loose circle of her arms. The sight still made him freeze.

"Aren't you glad you found your brother?" Darla asked, hugging the little girl.

"You bitch!" He caught her by the throat, pushing her up against the wall, and then blinked as her face turned into that of a young man. He let go, slowly, trying to figure out if this was real. He had a feeling that it was, that they had been talking – but about what? The man was badly beaten. Had he done that?

"Holy shit!" the guy choked.

"I'm... I'm sorry."

"No – don't be. That was brilliant. That's exactly what I'm talking about. You'll find my brother in no time."

His brother? Right. The man had come to ask Angel find his brother. Apparently he wasn't the only crazy person in this conversation.

"I don't think I'm the guy."

"Family's important," said his little sister, tilting her head so the neck wounds were visible. "You don't leave your family behind."

"You're not really here," he argued fiercely. "She never turned you."

"She could have. Or you could have." Tears filled in her eyes. "Why did you leave me, Liam?"

"Shut up! Go away!"

"Listen," said the guy, backing off a few steps, though he didn't seem afraid. "I'll leave if you want me to, but I really want to find my brother. He's in trouble, I know it."

"Don't you understand?" Angel was getting desperate. Kathy was making cheeky faces at him, like she used to when she was alive, and he couldn't deal with that and the stranger at the same time. It was too much. All he wanted was some peace and quiet. "I'm dangerous."

"I should hope you are." The guy sat down on the desk, right next to Darla. Angel started forward to stop him – did he have a deathwish or something? But of course, Darla wasn't real. Angel knew she wasn't. "This isn't humans we're dealing with. I'm need someone dangerous."

"I can't."

"I heard you go after killer demons. That you're trying to do the right thing."

Angel stared at Kathy, who was reaching her arms out for her new foster-mommy, eager to be lifted up. He watched Darla drinking from her, taking deep gulps with great satisfaction. That had never happened. And still...

"Aren't you trying to do the right thing?"

"God, yes." The answer came without thought, but he watched the vampires - his family - and made up his mind. "Yes. All right. I'll find your brother."

Wesley spiked the fourth onion, peeled it, and was about to start slicing it when the door slammed behind him. He managed to control his urge to jump, and turned around slowly to face Li. If it had been anyone else, they might have received a lecture, but considering the troubles the boy had gone through lately, Wesley decided to go easy on him.

"Some people would consider it unwise to startle a man holding a knife."

"Sorry." Li seemed unusually awkward. "Can I...?"

Wesley nodded at the raw meat lying on the work bench. "Cut it up."

The boy jumped to it, clearly relieved to have something at hand. Wesley understood. All things considered, Li wasn't a bad kid, but he was an impudent one, and they hadn't always gotten along. The idea of being beholden must be as embarrassing for both of them.

Only the chop-chop-chopping of their two knives broke the silence, until finally Li put his down and turned to Wesley. "Thank you for getting me out of that place."

Wesley contemplated how to answer. Definitely not with that impersonal 'you're welcome' or, even worse, 'it's nothing'. This wasn't something he could brush off. "It was the only thing I could do."

"I didn't do it," Li said, a desperation in his voice that surprised Wesley. The brothel story had proven true, so why was he trying to preach to the converted?

"I know. Anne checked your alibi."

"I'd never do anything like that." Now Li sounded about to start crying, and if Wesley wasn't comfortable with his own tears, he certainly wasn't any more fond of other people's.

"Of course not," he hurried to assure the boy, hoping it was the right thing to say.

"I mean, some pot now and then, yeah, and maybe I've taken something in a store once or twice, but not armed robbery, man. Not killing people."

Wesley was about to say 'of course not' again, but then the penny finally dropped. Li had been arrested for a crime he hadn't committed. He wasn't consciously trying to convince Wesley of something they both already knew. This was about policemen scaring half to death a kid who was already wary, for good reasons, of authority. By refusing to believe him, by putting him in a situation where the truth was impossible and a lie would send him to prison or worse.

Wesley had never been arrested, but he did know a thing or two about the anguish when nothing he said could improve his situation in the slightest. He put the knife down and turned to Li, saying what he would have wanted to hear.

"Those policemen weren't interested in the truth, Li. They had a horrible crime on their hands and wanted someone to blame for it. You were convenient because you have a record and no family, but the case was incredibly weak. All they had on you was your agility and your Asian descent, and judging from the line-up results, they weren't even clear on what kind of Asian."

"One of them was Hawaiian," Li whispered. "One of the guys in the line-up."

"Hawaiian," Wesley repeated. He didn't understand some people. Surely it couldn't be harder to tell someone Hawaiian from someone Chinese than it was to tell a Kailiff demon from a Lasovic. "Good Lord. Well, that certainly proves my point. They were sloppy and uninterested, and you were convenient. That's all."

"They believed you." It was an accusation, although not necessarily directed at him. "That was a pretty dumb story you came up with, but they never questioned it. Cause you're white and old and talk fancy."

"You forgot this," Wesley said with more than a hint of cynicism, gesturing at his missing arm. If Li wanted to turn this into a time for bitterness and self-pity, he might as well join in. "I think it helped quite a bit."

He noticed, quite amused, that Li was blushing. So he'd won the 'poor me' contest, without even putting in any honest effort. He'd used natural embarrassment to his advantage and to the boy's, and he was more proud than sad about it.

"Well, anyway, if there's anything I can do to repay you..."

"I'll let you know," Wesley answered automatically, and then it occurred to him that there actually was something he wanted from Li. "That place you were in..."

"Madame Dorian's?"

"Yes." Oh dear, this was a highly disturbing thing to ask of an impressionable youth. "Do you think you could give me the address?"

Li's face split into a wide grin. "Sure. That doesn't even count."

To his own surprise, Wesley grinned back. It counted for him.

Whatever he'd expected a demon brothel to be, it wasn't this business-like decadence. The interior decorating clashed terribly with a number of interspecial couples enjoying each other's company in the lobby. Wesley sincerely hoped he wasn't supposed to perform in public the way these people did.

"Can I help you?"

Madame Dorian, in her discreet yellow business suit, wasn't what he had expected either.

"Ah, yes. My name is Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. I... I got this address from a boy called Chen Li. He said..."

"Li?" Her features hardened. "You're not with the police, are you?"

"Oh, no. Not at all. That situation has been taken care of, I assure you."

"Good. It would have been bad for business if the kid told the truth – there's always a risk someone would believe him enough to check us out. It was a good thing our lawyers promised to nip it in the bud."

"Lawyers?" Wesley asked, his head starting to snap the pieces of the puzzle together even before she mentioned the firm's name. So it wasn't pure altruism that had sent Lindsey McDonald to Li's rescue. He listened with half an ear to Madame Dorian's rant about how discretion was vital to her clientele, still thinking about other matters.

"So, if that's not why you're here," she finished her rant, "can I assume that your business here is personal?"

"Uh... yes. Yes, that's right."

"Do you have any special wishes?" She sounded like a waitress. He half expected her to bring out a notebook and start jotting down his orders.

His mind went immediately to Gunn, and he pushed the thought away. "A woman. Not too young. Fair, short, perhaps a bit chubby, long hair... on her head, I mean," he added when he recalled what this place was.

"Human-looking?"

"Well... fairly." He was more curious about this demon-loving than he dared admit, but he wouldn't want anyone too startlingly different.

She nodded, her brow furrowed in concentration. "I think I may have someone... what are your feelings concerning backs?"

"Backs?" he repeated like an idiot.

"Do you insist on them?"

He stared at her, trying to figure out what on earth she was talking about. "I've never given it much thought."

"Very well, then." She gave him another energetic nod and left the room, soon to return with a woman wearing a minute cotton dress.

At a first glance, Wesley could tell that Madame Dorian knew her job: this woman was pretty much exactly what he'd been asking for. As his eyes wandered down, he noticed the fox tail that curved along her legs, a darker match to her ginger hair.

"Mr..." Madame Dorian started.

"Wyndham-Pryce," Wesley said, forcing himself to look up into the freckled, smirking face of a woman closer to forty than thirty.

"Ah, yes. Mr. Wyndham-Pryce, this is Elsa. I hope you will find her satisfying. Elsa, show him your back."

Elsa lift up her long hair with one hand and the dress with another and spun around. Wesley blinked at the sight of the large hollow lined with tree bark that went from her shoulder blades to the spot where the tail started. Scandinavian wood sprite, his mind told him, but certainly the illustrations in handbooks on folklore and mythology weren't anything like seeing the real thing. As Elsa spun around again, he noticed that her bosom didn't heave. She wasn't breathing.

"Will she do?"

Well, she certainly couldn't have looked any less like Gunn. "Yes. Thank you."

"Very well. Then I'll leave you two alone. We can make you up a bill after you've conducted your business."

Wesley wasn't entirely pleased to see Madame Dorian leave. He fully agreed that she had to, but it made the situation a little too pressing. Elsa gave him a roguish grin of a kind he'd interpret as friendly if he saw it at the shelter. Here, he wasn't so sure.

"Do you want to proceed in here or should we find a room?" she asked. She had a surprisingly deep voice for a woman so short – how could she talk at all if she wasn't breathing? – and a heavy accent. Vocally, she resembled a less serene version of Greta Garbo in Ninotchka.

"A room," he replied quickly. "Definitely a room."

"Come on, then." She jerked her head to show the way, and proceeded to a door, through a corridor, past another door, all the time swaying her generously shaped hips in a highly distracting manner. Wesley tried not to look, but felt ridiculous when he caught himself. She was a half-naked prostitute, he was supposed to stare at her. Even the way her tail moved was erotic, and Good Lord, that was just a little too close to bestiality for his liking.

But if that was bestiality, what was that back of hers? He wasn't even sure there was a word for people who had sex with trees, and he'd certainly never entertained the thought, not until he saw that hollow surrounded by voluptuous, female curves.

"Here we are," she said, stepping into yet another room. He could see a king-sized bed covered in wine red sheets, but very little else, since she turned around in the door, preventing him from going inside. "So. Wesley Wyn...ah..."

"Wyndham-Pryce."

"Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, do you promise to be good to the forest?"

What a very odd turn of conversation. "What forest?"

"Any forest."

"I promise?" He hadn't meant it to come out as a question, but then, not much in this endeavour had turned out the way he would have expected.

"Lovely!" The grin she gave him this time definitely didn't fit a woman of her age. Whatever her age was. He had a suspicion she might be significantly over forty. "Now, let's have sex."

Before he could react, she had pulled him into the room and started unbuttoning his shirt. When she moved on to his pants, he'd collected himself enough to put his hand protectively over the button. "D-don't you think you're being a bit forward?"

"You like me forward," she assured him, pushing his hand aside to get those pants off. He didn't move his feet and she put her hands on his shoulders, prepared to push him. To save himself from the humiliation, he sat down on the bed, and she took off his boots and trousers before jumping up on top of him. In spite of her weight, she didn't harm him in the process. It was surely quite sexy, if one could ignore that he was ridiculously self-conscious of his socks. They were still on, but one of them had slid off halfway and distracted his attention. He let his eyes drift, pretending that he wasn't embarrassed. It was a remarkably nice room, with a dressing table that looked Edwardian, quite a few potted plants – and a stone statue of two rabbits in the middle of an intimate act which broke the impression of class quite abruptly.

Elsa was now kissing the spot where his earlobe met his jaw, something he'd long since discovered he found intensely enjoyable. Funny that she'd choose that spot first of all. In his dreams, it had been Gunn doing exactly the same thing.

This was entirely too strange.

"Miss, if you don't mind..." but her lips silenced his. He had deliberately chosen someone as different from Gunn as possible, and yet the experience fitted his fantasies – if his fantasies had included a long, furry tail curling up his legs.

Wood sprites seduced men, all sources agreed on that, no matter how much they diverted on everything else. And if all wood sprites seduced men, was it so unreasonable to think that perhaps they shared some trait that made them hard to resist, for example an ability to pick up the men's sexual fantasies?

If that was the case, she probably couldn't help it, and chastising her for it would be pointless. So instead, he let his hand slide up against her back, touching that bark-lined hollow. He was here for the sex, after all, he might as well enjoy himself.

She laughed softly as he stroked his fingers along the edge of the hollow. There were no lungs, and yet he heard the sound. "How do you talk?"

"I don't know." She was kissing his shoulders now. Kissing those scars. Good Lord. "How do you?"

"But you have no lungs... you're not breathing."

She blew into his face, forcing him to blink. "You think too much."

Maybe she was right, but he couldn't give up his thoughts, not even when she guided his cock between her legs. His eyes fell on the rabbit sculpture. It was remarkably lifelike. Almost too lifelike.

And then it struck him with perfect clarity what all the sources also agreed upon. After a wood sprite had seduced a man, she would kill him.

The moment seemed to last forever. This was much more than simple relief, this was his lust drawn from him with force, a mix of pleasure and pain that was too strong for him to stand. He wasn't aware of anything around him anymore, just the feeling that kept going, spreading through him, changing him. His body felt very far away, and yet he could feel with perfect clarity that it was twisting and turning to eventually, when he returned to it, become something else entirely.

A laughing voice tickled his ear, which he had forgotten he even had. "Breathe."

He didn't know how, with the muscles involved in his doing so so very distant, but somehow he managed to obey. Soon he lay on the king size bed, gasping for breath, but still alive, thank God. Elsa hadn't killed him after all. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, glowing. He blinked. Yes. She was glowing. And she looked several years younger than before.

"You can rest as long as you need to," she assured him.

He turned his head to the sculpture. It was two actual rabbits, caught in the act. "This is..." He was much too tired to speak, but tried anyway. "This is where you would kill me, correct?"

"Oh, I'm not allowed to do that here." She gave him a brief smile and moved to a dressing table, where she proceeded to brush her hair. Her eyes were still watching him in the mirror.

"But if you were... I would be stone now."

"Actually, I thought you'd make quite a nice juniper," she said, stopping the swift motions of the brush while she was thinking. The glow was starting to disappear, but she still looked younger than before the sex. "Prickly if you get too close, but with a nice smell." She started to brush again, with long, energetic strokes. "In any case, you promised not to harm the forest. I can't kill you after that."

"You make everyone promise?"

"I'll hold you to that promise, you know," she warned him.

He lay silently for a while, watching her. Demon sex had been quite different from what he had expected, and the thought of what she could have done to him was highly unpleasant, but at the very least it seemed to have worked. His body felt heavy and dull, but the ache in his chest and behind his eyes wasn't there anymore. The thoughts of Gunn were easier on him now, the disbelieving joy of knowing something wonderful, not the painful frustration of having it one step removed at all time.

"This is such a lovely lust," said Elsa, admiring herself in the mirror. "How long has it been for you?"

"About six months," he said, without even having to think about what she might mean. He'd recalled the exact date before making the decision to do this.

"Not more?" It seemed to surprise her, and she touched the skin near her mouth and eyes tentatively. "So strong in only six months – is it more than lust, then?"

She turned to look straight at him, instead of into the mirror, but he didn't answer. Didn't know how to answer without bringing that ache back. Yes, Wesley old boy, he thought, you've fallen hard this time. More than lust, I'd say.

"Sorry," she said, turning back again. "None of my business."

He felt an unexpected relief that she gave up interest so quickly. Very clearly, her main focus was herself, and yet she seemed to be so closely connected to the forest that he'd have to become its protector before he could sleep with her. Highly interesting.

"Doesn't it bother you," he asked, rolling over clumsily to fetch his shirt, "to compromise the forest by letting anyone swear to protect it?"

She took a lipstick from the table and began applying it while she spoke, without ever missing her lips. The skill certain women had with make-up was fascinating. "Do I look picky to you? I'm not picky. They do what they promised, and I'm happy." She chortled. "Now, I had a sister who was very picky. She once seduced two men at once, only one of them was short and the other was tall, and that drove her crazy. She made the short one's head lie next to the tall one's, but then of course the feet didn't match, and when the feet matched the heads didn't. So finally she went to fetch an axe to chop off..." Her voice trailed off and for the first time she looked uncertain. "Sorry."

"It's quite all right," he said, trying to find his pants. He wasn't too pleased with her sudden sympathy, particularly since it didn't stop her from staring at his attempts to get dressed. Besides, he was interested in her story, whatever her sister had decided to chop off. "So what happened?"

"She made the mistake of telling her victims she was heading off for an axe. They ran off while she was away."

"So the moral of the story is..."

"You can't afford to be picky."

Wesley laughed. He had a feeling he might be coming back to this place just to take notes, even if the ache stayed away and he could look at Gunn without going crazy. Getting off the bed, he found his pants by the foot end, partly under it. Bugger, they were getting filthy.

"Are you done?"

Wesley had to bite his lip to stop his chin from falling down at the stupid question. "No. No, I'm not. I generally like to wear trousers and boots."

A small sigh escaped her lips. "Do you want me to help you?"

His cheeks heated. The suggestion in itself was bad enough, but the way she said it... still, he was reasonably sure she meant no harm. "I'd really prefer it if you didn't. Why don't you... put on some make-up, or something. Make yourself pretty."

She stared at him. "Okay, I'm three hundred and fiftysomething years old, so I'm not much of a feminist, but I'm fairly sure that was offensive."

"You're right." He didn't even want to think about who that dismissal would have suited.

Offensive or not, it didn't seem to have meant much to her; she was already preoccupied with a new-looking Cosmopolitan magazine. "Besides, I already made myself pretty. With you."

"You made yourself younger."

"Welcome to L.A."

The unexpected sarcasm caused him to chuckle, and he was still chuckling when he'd gotten the rest of his clothes on and headed out of the room. Not until he was waiting for the receptionist to give him his change did the mirth die away, as his eyes fell on a large poster behind her desk. 'ANGEL', in eight inch letters.

He moved closer, ignoring the receptionist's protests that he should stay on the other side of the desk. 'Fight Club' the poster said. 'Introducing Angel the Mad Dog Vampire'. Mad dog? What on earth was going on? He let his eyes drift further down, finding the words 'sponsored by Madame Dorian's House of Pleasures'.

"Son of a bitch," he breathed.


	6. Out in the Open

TITLE: OUT IN THE OPEN

AUTHOR: Katta ( )

RATING: PG-13 (mostly for violence, some for slashiness)

DISCLAIMER: Any recognizable characters belong to Mutant Enemy and others, not to me. I mean no copyright infringement by writing this fic.

SERIES/SEQUEL: Sixth in my Birthdayverse series. Previous stories can be found at under "Birthdayverse".

RELEVANT EPISODES: "The Ring", "Birthday"

SUMMARY: The rescue of Angel and its aftermaths.

Wesley handed his ticket to the doorkeeper and stepped inside. Despite the large poster in the brothel, he'd had a hard time getting a ticket, and the final price had been atrocious. He could have had a night at the opera for the money he had spent on this reconnoitre mission. Of course, he didn't have the clothes for such entertainment, while here his appearance wasn't noticeably different from that of many other customers.

As he pushed through the crowd towards the large ring, he found himself wishing for one particular thing commonly found at the opera: a pair of opera glasses. He could see the demons fighting in the ring. There was the gleam of metal at their wrists, and he'd heard of such devices, bracelets that could force them to stay inside the ring, but he couldn't get a closer look.

One of the combatants, that Wesley identified as a remarkably bloody and beaten howler demon, started making the most unpleasant sound. Although a first-hand experience of this kind should probably be cherished, Wesley wished that it would shut up. Apparently its opponent had similar wishes, because before the howler demon could get in as much as a last blow, the larger demon grabbed its neck and broke it. The crowd cheered but Wesley winced, wondering if Angel was even alive anymore. He found an empty seat and sank down, his lips dry and his hand sweaty.

The announcer started speaking, and Wesley immediately paid attention: "From this exhilarating experience, we venture straight into tonight's second game, featuring a new favourite – a crazy, fearless fighter still fresh from his first kill. Angel the Mad Dog vampire!"

Wesley leaned forward. The words "first kill" made him concerned that maybe what stepped into the ring wouldn't really be Angel at all, but rather his evil counterpart. If that was the case, how would he be able to tell the difference?

But once the vampire entered, Wesley had no more doubts. Angel was very different from his time in Sunnydale, muttering to himself and throwing strange glances at nowhere, but as peculiar as his behaviour was, Wesley could see no evidence of evil in his appearance. Only hurt and confusion.

"What have they done to him?" Wesley breathed to himself.

He had no time to contemplate the question further. Angel's opponent was announced as well, and the combat began.

At first it was more of a slaughter than a fight. Angel barely moved when the first punches came, sagged a bit maybe, but seemed to have his attention elsewhere. After yet another punch he looked up at the red line above, and Wesley's heart skipped a beat. Touching a line while wearing a bracelet was lethal, but he wasn't sure that Angel in his current condition would understand that – or care if he did.

"Come on, Angel." Wesley's voice was still barely more than a breath, but Angel's eyes moved from the red line out over the audience, and though he showed no recollection, the increased puzzlement on his face when he got to Wesley was promising.

The announcer dropped two wooden staffs in the ring. They were both pointed, and would work excellently for staking a vampire. Angel ignored his, but the other demon seized one immediately and attacked. It was very clear that he was going for the killing blow. Only this time, Angel spun around just before the strike hit, grabbing the staff and wrenching it out of the other demon's hands. He proceeded to attack, but still seemed strangely absent from his actions, and it took a while before the audience realised that the tables had turned. Angel very clearly had the upper hand now.

"He is quite a fighter after all," an amused female voice said behind Wesley. "Hard to believe when you talk to him – he's definitely gone nuts. Of course, I happen to think he always was."

Wesley tensed, both from what he heard and what he saw. Angel had floored his opponent, and Wesley silently cheered on him with all his heart. But even the cruel sport below wasn't nearly as engaging as the conversation behind him, and he wished there could have been a way for him to turn around without making it obvious that he was listening in.

"You've talked to him? Did you offer to get him out?"

"To tell you the truth, I didn't see the point. He barely even registered me. Even if he managed to kill enough opponents to be set free, he'd be as mad as a hatter."

"But Holland said…"

"Twenty-one kills to get out. One or two matches per night. He won't even know the meaning of the words 'Wolfram and Hart', much less be able to cause any more problems for us."

Wesley gasped, and then quickly clasped his mouth shut, hoping this carelessness would be written off as interest for the fight. It was quickly coming to an end, but even the view of Angel running the wooden staff up through stomach pit to shoulder blades, leaving it's point protruding bloodily out of the other demon's back, couldn't shock him more.

Wolfram and Hart. The firm Anne referred to as her guardian angels. The people who had helped Chen Li out of prison. He couldn't make what he knew from the shelter fit this callous attitude, and he stood up, slightly dizzy, turning for the exit. He got a glimpse of the speaking woman, who was tall, slim and dark-haired, as well as her partner of conversation who was none of these things, and registered their faces.

He needed to find out how those bracelets worked so he could get Angel out of this place. The lawyers could wait.

"Get out of my way," Angel growled. Someone was trying to use his head as a punchbag, which made it hard to concentrate, but he didn't take his eyes off Doyle.

"Sorry, mate, no can do." Doyle gave a wide smirk, standing by the edge of the ring so Angel couldn't reach the red line. "See, I happen to love you. Meaning I don't want you to die. And that line? Very lethal. Of course, I don't have to tell you that."

"I want to die. I don't want to kill anyone. I want to die."

"Come on!" Doyle protested. "You're so close to help and you're just going to give up?"

"Help?"

"Help." Now Kate was the one standing by the red line, motioning towards the audience. "There was a one-armed man looking for you."

Angel looked up at the audience. At first, he couldn't see what she was talking about, but then he spotted the one-armed man, sitting not too far from the ring. There was something familiar about him, but Angel couldn't figure out what.

"I don't care. I want to die."

"You do not want to evaporate." It was back to Doyle again, his face a lot sterner now. "It's not everything it's cut out to be. Trust me."

Angel winced from the reminder, and then once again as Trepkos tried to hit him with a stick. Trepkos, that was the name of the demon who was fighting him, and he was a damn annoying one. Angel grabbed the stick and ripped it away.

"Who's the one-armed man?" he asked Doyle. "Get Kate! I want to know who the one-armed man is!"

"She doesn't know." Doyle's voice was disdainful.

"Then who does? Do you know?"

"I know who he is." Buffy. It was a long time since it had last been Buffy. Strange, really, seeing how she had been his whole life once. "He's a nobody. Unless you need someone to scream like a woman, you won't get any help from him."

"You never were fair to him," Angel said. Trepkos was trying to attack again, and Angel had to put all his attention into the game, but it struck him that if he knew that much, he probably knew who the one-armed man was, too. But he didn't have the time to find out. He was struggling with an evil-doer – damn, the man was strong – and he had to bring him down fast.

Gunn stared silently at Wesley. Alonna, on the other hand, was more than willing to talk.

"You don't even know that he's safe. And even if he was, how are you going to make sure he's the only one who escapes? If every demon there has to kill twenty-one to leave, we're talking about a pretty big supply. We have a hard enough time dealing with the demons that are already out there. Can you imagine what it would be like if we started messing with something this big?"

"He's a good man," Wesley said, pained at the logic in Alonna's arguments. She'd have made a good Watcher.

Gunn finally opened his mouth. "He's not a man at all, is he?"

Despite the ominous silence, Wesley had hoped that Gunn could be persuaded to see things his way, but it appeared this was not the case. "Not technically, no..."

"I'm not risking my neck for a vampire. I don't care if he comes with a halo and wings."

Wesley gave Alonna a last pleading look. "I have to do this."

"So do it," she said. "It's not like we can stop you."

But they could, and rather efficiently at that. This wasn't something he could manage alone, and he knew that if they said no, that no went for the rest of the gang as well. Their attitude towards demons was simplistic to say the least, and he couldn't blame them – their only experience of demons was from combat situations, and even the long training and education of Watchers hadn't given the Council a more nuanced approached. But he knew Angel, and this was not right.

It struck him that perhaps this was the time to call in a few favours, and he headed for the nearest bus station. The bus to the promenade slowed to a halt as he rounded the block, and he had to run the last few steps to catch it.

The bus was half-empty, and apart from the stuffy and rather smelly air the ride was quite comfortable. Since he'd been forced to sell his bike, he had spent a lot of time on public transport, and knew how rare an occurrence it was for him to get enough space to think properly. And he definitely needed to think now.

He'd been trained to think of the supernatural as something that should only be dealt with by experts, while the ordinary people were protected from it. Sunnydale had taught him differently, Gunn and Alonna even more so. But still, it was nothing to be taken lightly.

He stepped off the bus and headed down the promenade, still in deep thoughts. He promply ignored salespeople and performers demanding his attention, although the girl playing three trumpets at a time did make him stop for a brief moment. In the crowd, it took him a good half hour before he managed to spot a small, black-clad figure bending itself into a pretzel.

"Li," he said, stopping before the boy.

"Oh, hi Wesley." Li's chin was pressed hard against his ankle, but he still managed to talk. "What's up?"

"I need a favour, actually. Is there some place we can talk?"

Li slowly untangled from the mess he had made of himself and rolled up on his feet. With a final chivalrous bow he picked up the beret he'd used to collect the money, and nodded towards Wesley. "No problem. I was longing for a break anyway."

The promenade didn't permit for anything even resembling actual privacy, but they sat down on a bench by the waterfront, and Wesley told Li what he had told Gunn. He tried to phrase himself somewhat better this time, but wasn't the least bit sure that he succeeded.

Li sat listening while Wesley argued, explained and persuaded. Finally he said, "So he's a vampire?"

"Ah... yes," Wesley replied, thrown by the polite curiosity of Li's question. "But he has a soul."

"You said." Li scrunched up his face, which was just as rubberlike as the rest of him. "How does that work?"

"He was cursed by gypsies."

"Wow." Li seemed to ponder that, and then shrugged. "Okay, then. What do you want me to do?"

Wesley was dumbfounded, and it slowly dawned on him that the child was more innocent than he had thought. While Gunn might have done something like this regardless of the danger, Li didn't seem to understand that there was a danger.

"After I have figured out how to work the bracelet, we'll go back to the fight club on a night when Angel is in the ring. Then on my command, I want you get into the ring, free Angel from his bracelet and get the two of you out of there as soon as possible. I'll be covering you."

Li nodded. "Sounds reasonable."

It was not reasonable. It was foolhardy and likely to go wrong, and if it did, Li would be the one paying for it, not Wesley. Li's failure to understand that made Wesley very concerned.

"It will be very dangerous. You could get killed."

"But it's for a good cause, right?" Li wasn't naturally equipped to appear wide-eyed, but the naivety in his voice was unmissable.

This was preposterous. He'd have thought that Li was familiar with the demon world, but of course, a friendly arena like Madam Dorian's was quite unlike what they would be going up against now. Furthermore, and probably more important, Li was still enough of a child to think himself immortal. Though his life had certainly been far from easy, he'd probably never faced death first-hand, and Wesley certainly wasn't the one to introduce him to it. Not in this fashion, in any case. Wesley had to find another way, perhaps try to persuade Gunn once again, or make the attempt on his own.

"Very well then," he said, managing to smile even though his face felt like dried plaster. "I appreciate your help. Mind if we start right away?"

Madame Dorian gave Wesley and Li a very friendly greeting, but when she heard why they were there her eyebrows flew up and she hurried to pull Wesley into her office.

"I don't think you should take the boy to that place," she said. "It's bad enough for adults."

There was a certain irony about a woman in her position saying something like that. "You don't seem to object to having minors here," Wesley snapped, already feeling guilty and lashing out on instinct.'

"It's not the same." Madam Dorian scowled hard and walked up to a small table, pushing the vase standing on it a few inches. Evidently that didn't please her either, because she pushed it back right away. "That's simply business between consenting people who happen to be of separate species. I don't deal in slavery."

"If you don't mind me saying so," Wesley said, trying to keep control of his anger, "sponsoring slavery is also a form of 'dealing' in it."

She kept fidgeting with that vase, clearly not satisfied no matter how she placed it. "It's a legal thing. And also, I might add, none of your business."

Wesley felt his body go numb. "Legal as in Wolfram and Hart?"

Madam Dorian finally took her full attention off the vase. "They're excellent lawyers. Naturally, their price is somewhat high."

Wesley looked straight into her eyes. "I'm afraid it's absolutely essential that Chen Li goes to the fight club in my company, on a night when Angel is fighting."

Madam Dorian stared at him for a moment, and something in her edginess hardened. It surprised him when she nodded curtly. "Of course. I'll arrange for your tickets right away."

"There's another thing." He was pressing his luck with this, but he had to ask. "Those bracelets – do you know how they open?"

"No, I don't." The answer came quickly, but not too quickly. She was most likely telling the truth.

"Then, do you know where to get one?"

Her nod was almost invisible, as if even here they couldn't speak openly, but it was there.

Once again, Wesley took a seat near the ring of the fight club. Li was by his side, looking in every direction, in no way resembling anything but a curious boy on his first visit to a special event. Even Wesley had to look hard to find the bulk of a rope under Li's jacket, despite the large metal hook he knew was tied to it. His own gun felt much more obtrusive, and he had been certain that the guard outside would stop him – but no such thing had happened.

He looked down at his ticket. It only offered basic information about the night's game, but he felt oddly comforted by Madam Dorian's sponsor ad on the reverse. She could have betrayed him if she had wanted to, and yet he was certain she wouldn't. And certainty was something he had too little of.

Li was currently leaning backwards in a way that had to strain his muscles ferociously, but Wesley turned his attention to the ring, knowing from last time that the fighters would soon be called out. He could see the announcer slouching against the wall, presumably waiting for everyone to sit down. Eventually, the hall went somewhat quiet. The announcer straightened his back – and Wesley straightened his, tugging at Li's jacket to make him pay attention.

"Ladies and gentlemen, for the third time tonight..."

Wesley didn't listen to the morbid praise the announcer rattled off, but he listened for the name "Angel". When he heard it and soon after saw the vampire step into the ring, he gave Li a hard shove in the back, whispering, "Now!"

Wesley had seen Li in action twice before but was still surprised at the ease with which the boy hooked the rope onto the wall and jumped down. If Angel felt any surprise at seeing the small figure land before his feet, he didn't show it. Instead, he stood perfectly still while Li brought up the small key and released him from the bracelet.

He was the only one. People had started to rise from their seats, and the announcer was reaching for his inner pocket. Wesley took forth his gun and fired. Perhaps it wasn't a weapon the man had reached for, but there was no time to find that out.

The second demon had already entered the ring, and Wesley prepared to fire again, only to see Angel pull Li behind himself and slug the demon. The blow was only enough to stun, not to kill, but it gave Angel and Li some respite, and Wesley a chance to turn his gun towards the crowd. He neither could nor would kill them alll, but the threat of the weapon kept people back in case someone would try an act of heroism.

A thud behind him very nearly made him bite his tongue off, until he heard Angel say, "Oh, there you are," as if this had somehow been expected. Apart from the odd comment, he seemed more collected than last time, and Wesley was entirely grateful, seeing how guards were beginning to draw closer. There were still too many people in the crowd for a clear shot, but that was likely to change.

"One one-armed man to go," Li said, sounding somewhat out of breath. "To go fast, I hope!"

That was when one of the guards fired his first shot. Wesley fired back and turned to Angel: "Cover us!" It was hardly fair to ask the vampire to take the bullets, but at least it wouldn't kill him. And a large proportion of the crowd was now beginning to panic. Although the mass of human bodies kept their distance to the vamped-out Angel, there were still enough of them to stop the guards from getting a clean shot.

The three of them were almost by the door when a shriek was heard from within the hall and the pushings of the crowd became even stronger. Wesley filled with a ghastly suspicion, but he had to dispose of the doorman before he could turn to Li and ask, "What did you do with the key?"

The boy was considerably pale as he replied, "I... I think I left it on the floor..."

They got out the door and headed for the car. Wesley let a noticeably shaking Li into the driver's seat before hurrying to join Angel in the back. He was shaking himself. What was supposed to be a rescue mission of one vampire with a soul had turned into the release of bloodthirsty demons. The best case scenario was that the demon in the ring had taken the key with him. The worst case scenario...

The worst case scenario would have to wait. The immediate disaster seemed to be over. There were no cars following them, and although Angel was full of bleeding bullet holes, it didn't seem to slow him down any, and there were still hours left before sunrise.

"How can he be the one-armed man?" Angel asked.

Wesley blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Of course I remember him. We met in Sunnydale. But he wasn't one-armed then."

"He was talking like that before, too," Li said, looking at the two of them - well, Wesley anyway, and the void where Angel was - in the rear view mirror. He was still shaking badly. "Asking for the one-armed man."

"I was hurt by a Kungai demon," Wesley told Angel, wondering if this was what the vampire wanted to know.

"Shut up, that's not funny!" Angel snapped. He leaned in against Wesley in a conspiratorial manner, whispering, "How did Doyle know about you?"

"Is Doyle the police woman?" Wesley tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together. He thought that last comment had been aimed at him, but it was hard to tell.

"Kate! You're right, it was Kate! Doyle just spoke of help."

"Was Doyle one of the demons?"

"Only the half that didn't matter."

That didn't seem like much of an answer, and perhaps it wasn't one, either. Wesley stopped trying to make sense of Angel's talking and focused on Li, who was shaking even worse now.

"Li, are you all right?"

"He's bleeding."

Wesley didn't know what made him so sure this comment wasn't just more crazy talk from Angel, but he leaned forward between the front seats and pulled the brakes before piling out of the car as fast as he could. When he opened the driver's door, he noticed for the first time the cramping grip Li had on the steering wheel, as if letting go would make him fall. On a closer look, he saw dark red blood seeping out from under Li's black jacket.

"Good Lord!" Wesley leaned in closer and found the bullet hole in the jacket, and after lifting up both that and the shirt he saw the wound itself. Fortunately, it didn't seem deep, and the blood was seeping, not gushing. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Didn't think it was too bad," Li said, his teeth clattering. "Don't know why I'm shaking."

"You're in shock, that's why." Wesley hauled Li out of the front seat as cautiously as he could, which wasn't very, and he got a low moan in response.

"It's dark and pure," Angel said from the back seat. "He'll be okay."

"Yes, but he can't drive. Would you..." But if Angel was only half sane, letting him drive would be a decidedly bad idea as well. Should he call an ambulance? Angel's appearance would be very hard to explain. "...please look out for him while I drive to the shelter?"

Li sat down by Angel in the back seat without arguing. All he said was, "Anne will be mad at us, huh?"

"Of course not," Wesley said, shutting the back door and sitting down in the driver's seat. How the hell was he supposed to manage this one-handed? He muttered to himself, "Though it's quite possible that Anne will be mad at me."

One advantage with having one's own key to the shelter was that one could get in after curfew without any trouble from Anne. Nevertheless, by the time Wesley had opened up she was already standing at the end of the hall with her arms crossed. When she saw the state they were in, her arms quickly dropped while her eyes widened, and she hurried up to them.

"What happened? Should I call an ambulance?"

"You'd better not." Wesley dropped the keys on a table and put his arm around Li, whose feet didn't seem too stable. "It looks worse than it is. Angel, come on in."

"Looks worse than it is?" Anne had stepped up to Angel, clearly prepared to help him with bandages, ambulances or a coffin, whichever would be needed. Seeing how straight and undisturbed he stood, in spite of the bloody wounds, she stopped short and frowned.

"He's not human," Wesley said, sagging a little. Li was a lot heavier than he looked and seemed about to faint. "He'll be fine. But I need some help with Li."

Anne took half a step back at hearing "not human" and instead helped take Li off Wesley and lead him towards the office, where the first aid kit was located. "Is he safe?" she asked, very low.

"If he wasn't, I wouldn't have brought him."

Fortunately, Anne accepted this without any further question, only a skeptical glance towards Angel, who managed to pull himself together enough to offer a smile. He wasn't talking to himself anymore, but Wesley had a feeling that the invisible person hadn't gone far. Still, that was a later worry, and Wesley was only grateful to have one less thing to explain to Anne.

"This is a bullet wound."

"Ah, yes. Yes it is." A more elaborate answer than that was probably required, but Wesley couldn't think of one.

"What the hell is going on?"

"They saved me."

Clearly Anne hadn't expected Angel to contribute to the conversation, because she spun around like he had pinched her. He sank down on a chair under her gaze, and Wesley started to wonder if the phrase "what doesn't kill you can only make you stronger" was in fact not true even for vampires. Angel looked an awful lot like his wounds were starting to bother him.

"I was taken prisoner, and they got me out. Unlocked my bracelet." Angel looked down at his wrist with a frown, and then raised his head to face Wesley. "How did you do that?"

"Trial and error." Wesley chortled a little. "Would you believe me if I said the solution lay in a violin bow?"

"Saved him, huh?" Anne's voice was surprisingly soft as she gave Li a pat on the cheek. "Well, if you tried to play hero it seems like you're paying for it now. It doesn't seem too bad, though."

"It isn't," Li insisted. "I'm f-fine."

"Sure you are," Anne agreed without any conviction, putting a compress against the wound. "At least the bullet seems to have come through clean. Hate to have that in your body. You should still see a doctor, though."

"The blood is pure. It didn't hit any organs," Angel said in a low voice.

Anne stared at him like a few more coins had dropped than she would have wanted, and Wesley hurried to intervene.

"I could take him, if Angel stays. Or we could both stay while you take him."

"I have a better idea," Anne said slowly. "How about you take the demon out of here before the kids wake up, and I'll call an ambulance."

Wesley felt his cheeks heat. First Gunn, now Anne, and that would have been hard enough if he'd been certain he was doing the right thing. But he couldn't get the screams from inside the fight club out of his head.

"All right." It was hardly fair to Angel, after everything he'd been through, but neither was barging in on Anne like this. She had enough to think of already. "I'll borrow the car until tomorrow?"

"Do that."

Gunn rapped on the door, harder and harder, and with a rising sensation of dread. Anne hadn't said anything about Wesley being hurt, but he might not have told her if he was. At long last, the door opened, and Gunn could see that Wesley looked tired and wrinkled, but clearly unhurt. The dread was immediately replaced with thorough anger.

"Are you out of your god-damned head?"

"Do come in, Gunn."

Gunn stormed into the apartment and burst into another row of accusations before Wesley had even had time to shut the door. "You took a kid into that place! You released a bunch of demons and took a kid into that place!"

"Yes I did." Wesley's voice was flat.

Helpless in the face of such a rejection to fight, Gunn let his hands fly into the air. "You risked his life. For a vampire!"

"Gunn, I'm quite aware what I did. If you have nothing else to tell me I suggest you leave."

Of all the infuriating little... If it had been anyone else, he'd be having to scrape his face off the wall after that remark. But some part of Gunn's mind wouldn't let him hit a cripple, not even a pig-headed, self-righteous, smart-ass, bastard cripple. "Three people are dead because of what you did. Was it worth it?"

"I don't know. I honestly don't..." Wesley suddenly stopped, and a deep frown formed on his forehead. "How many?"

"Three. At least that's what we think. Only one of them still had all parts attached. We didn't exactly count the pieces of the other two, but there were two skulls."

Wesley stared at the wall as if he was doing an equation on it. "There were hundreds of people in that fight club. I don't know how many demons there were, but certainly dozens. And you say only three people are believed killed so far? That doesn't match. Either we only released the first, or they were..."

"You say 'benign', you're a dead man."

"They can't have been altogether benign," Wesley mused, "or they wouldn't have fought in the first place. And there are those three bodies. Still, you've taken a weight off my shoulders."

"Well, I'm glad," Gunn said sarcastically. "So those three people don't matter?"

"Of course they matter." Wesley sat down and drew a long, shaky breath. "It wasn't supposed to happen this way. They were people willingly watching creatures kill each other – but they might still have been innocents, and I should have been able to save them. But when you've been fearing a massacre..."

"What about that kid? You could have gotten him killed." And then, so low he didn't know if he hoped Wesley would hear it or miss it: "You could have gotten yourself killed."

"I know." Wesley's voice wasn't much louder than Gunn. "It wasn't bravery. I just didn't know what else to do."

"And all for a vampire."

"Yes, as you put it, all for a vampire."

It occurred to Gunn that he didn't know where the vampire in question was, and that couldn't possibly be a good thing, even if he really preferred not knowing. "So, is he around?"

"Angel? He's sleeping."

That wasn't very likely, considering how Gunn had been yelling, but never mind that, because – "Angel? His name is Angel?"

"I didn't name him, Gunn."

Gunn snorted. "Nah, even you know better than that." There was a brief pause. "So, do I get to see him? This 'different' vampire 'with a soul'?"

"You want to see him?" Wesley's eyes flicked towards the bedroom, and for the first time during the conversation his voice quivered. "He's not entirely... sane."

"Never met a vampire who was." They'd been talking all this time with a vampire in the next room? That was beyond creepy. "He in here?"

He slammed the door open, ignoring Wesley's weak protests, and stared at the creature half-lying on the bed in there. It was tall and a bit bulky, pale of course, but with dark eyes and hair. With the bandages around its body and the look of surprise and confusion on its face, it seemed surprisingly human. But he wasn't ready to sing Kumbayah just yet.

"Angel," Wesley said from the doorway, "this is my good friend Gunn."

"Hi," the creature said, and bizarrely enough added, "Nice to meet you." Then its eyes turned to Wesley. "Where's Doyle? He was here just a moment ago."

"Doyle?" Gunn asked. He didn't take his eyes away from the vampire, but could see Wes shrugging on the edge of his vision.

"No." The creature was speaking again. "Doyle's dead. He died for me. He loved me and I couldn't love him back."

Its pain was so deep and so sincere that Gunn took a step back, and he was deliberately harsh when he said, "So this is your end of the deal? Some fucked-up vampire ranting about a dead faggot?"

Wesley left his peripheral vision, and he turned around, only to see the Englishman disappear into the kitchen. Even the line of his back somehow looked hurt. Gunn slumped against the wall. He'd said something wrong, something worse even than the harsh words had intended, because Wes would never had gone off like that for some little thing. He'd accused the guy of murder without getting the same reaction. So what was different now? The only thought he got was ridiculous, stupid...

"You're a jerk, you know that?"

Gunn looked up. The vampire was glaring at him as if he was the monster here. "Piss off. I just don't like vampires."

"I don't care what you think of vampires, or half-demons, or anything for that matter." It was sitting up now, swinging its feet over the side of the bed, but didn't seem about to attack. "You're not my friend, and seeing how you treat Wesley, I'm glad."

"It wasn't even aimed at him! It was..." Gunn stopped short and headed out into the kitchen. The suspicion was getting too weighty to ignore, and he had to find out or he'd never be able to think of anything else.

Wesley was standing by the stove, getting some water ready for boiling. So what now? Gunn wouldn't force anyone to look his way, but this was discomforting, and he shoved his hands down his pockets, leaning on the doorway.

"I'm sorry I said those things."

"Doesn't matter."

"I think it does. And there's something I gotta know..." Fuck. How did you say something like this? "Are you... I mean, have you ever... Do you... like guys?"

The back tightened. "I like many people. Men and women."

"That way?"

Wesley put the lid on the saucepan and finally looked up. "I don't see why this is any of your business, but yes. That way."

Gunn didn't see why this was any of his business either, but his stomach was fluttering all over and he couldn't stop pushing. "But have you... you know... done the deed with a guy?"

"Yes."

The answer was so low Gunn wasn't sure at first if he'd heard right, but Wesley's face said the same thing. A fag. Wesley was a fag – but no, that wasn't quite it, because he'd mentioned women as well. So, he was one of those bisexuals, and that was a lot harder to believe, because Wesley was after all the whitest guy Gunn had ever met, and with that accent and those manners, it was pretty easy to think of him as gay. But to think of him playing around with both sexes... that was just weird.

"So... okay, yeah... that's... you know... that's okay."

What else was there to say? Do you want to fuck me? Even in this strange state, he could tell that was the worst thing he could have said. Whatever the answer, it would be a disaster. If Wesley said yes, he'd have to back off, claim he'd just been asking out of general interest, and that would be cruel. On the other hand, if Wesley said no, well, if he said no... Gunn would be pretty screwed over, wouldn't he, seeing how his close friend, who just happened to be gay, wasn't the least bit attracted to him... while he got a hard-on at the mere thought. Jesus Christ.

"I got to go," he said, backing away towards the door. "I mean, it's not... I meant what I said, that it's okay. But I really got to go, because of those demons and everything."

Great. Now Wesley would offer to help. But he didn't, just bent his head down over the simmering water and nodded curtly. "Good-bye, then."

"Right. See you."

The apartment was small, but it took forever for Gunn to get to the stairs and down them. Shit. It was one thing with Wesley, it was even expected of Wesley, but... He had to get a grip on himself.

The sound of Angel turning on the television was strangely comforting. Wesley had gotten used to the silence and solitude of his home, but it was one of the main reasons he spent so much time elsewhere. Now all of a sudden these few rooms felt like a good place to live, and he had to sternly remind himself that Angel was just staying there until he'd healed up and would soon go back to his own apartment.

"Wesley?" Angel shouted from the living room. "Is Cordelia on television?"

Wesley put his book down and left the bedroom to see what Angel was talking about. He had yet to understand the nature of the vampire's insanity, or if it was true insanity at all. Half of the time Angel didn't notice him at all, instead ranting at people who weren't there, but the other half not only was Wesley real to him, but he was "he who is real" – a point of reference.

It made Wesley feel like he messed with things beyond his comprehension, since for all he knew Angel might really have achieved the ability to see invisible people, in which case that should probably be thoroughly researched. But his reassurances made Angel calmer, and so he obliged. At the very least he could say what was real, and that had to count for something.

So now he stood behind Angel's chair, watching a daytime serial. Onscreen, a doctor was just kissing a young nurse. "I'm afraid not, Angel."

"Not that one," Angel said, leaning forward. "There was a girl on the phone... maybe it wasn't Cordelia, but can you wait and see? The conversation wasn't over. They'll probably return to it later."

Wesley shrugged and sat down. The book he'd been reading had been dull anyway, just an attempt to stop himself from thinking. Certainly a daytime serial would do the same trick. He watched with detached amusement as the doctor sported red glowy eyes, and then...

Well, I had to dump him! the young brunette on the screen told the person on the other end of the line. He was shopping at Wal-Marts!

It took a while for Wesley to find his voice. "Good Lord!"

"So it is her?"

"Yes. It is indeed." Well, if he could find Angel on a fight club poster, why shouldn't he find Cordelia on TV? The world was a strange place, even by Watcher standards.

The doorbell rang, and Wesley tore himself from the screen to open the door. Gunn was standing outside, hands in his pockets, chin held high.

"We took four of them down tonight," he said.

"Oh." There had to be more to say than that. "That's good. Won't you come on in?"

Gunn stepped inside with long strides. "So, about yesterday..."

"Mm," Wesley said, trying with this to indicate that they didn't have to talk about yesterday if Gunn didn't particularly want to.

"I didn't mean to... I mean, it's okay, really."

Wesley was relieved to hear it, but held off comment.

"I'm kinda... wondering, though."

The pause following that seemed to last forever.

"Anything in particular?"

"Uh, yeah." Gunn turned away, and then apparently changed his mind, facing Wesley again. He took his hands out of his pockets and wiped them on his pants. "When you're... with a guy... what do you..."

This was truly quite incredible. Was he supposed to explain the whys and hows of homosexual encounters? He was hardly qualified, seeing how long it had been since he last had a man. "Gunn, I'd rather not..."

"I know, I know." Gunn shoved his hands back into his pockets again. "God, stupid thing to say. Just... is it the whole package, with kissing and touching...?"

Something clicked in Wesley's mind and caused him not to complain about Gunn's improper questions again but rather try to answer them. "Sometimes."

"And it's not just to get to the sex? I mean, if a guy, like, kissed you, would you think he owed you sex?"

"Of course not," Wesley said firmly. This wasn't the time for wishy-washy rambling about circumstances. He put his hand on Gunn's shoulder. "Gunn?"

Gunn tensed for a split second and then relaxed. "Yeah?"

Asking first would rather spoil the moment, and Wesley was certain enough of his conclusions to dare try without permission. He leaned his face upwards and let his mouth touch Gunn's, gently at first so as not to scare him. The response he got made him smile involuntarily. This wasn't the fumblings of a straight guy trying an experiment. Gunn might be frightened and inexperienced, but his kiss was active, searching, tasting.

From the corner of his eye he could see Angel halting in the doorway. Damn that vampire and his silent footsteps. Angel was already drawing back, but it was too late, Gunn had noticed Wesley's tension and let go, his face freezing when he too noticed Angel.

"Hello again." It wasn't technically possible for Angel to blush, but he was looking clearly uncomfortable. Considering the sexual habits of vampires, Wesley strongly suspected it was the bad timing that got to him, rather than what he had found. "Didn't mean to disturb you."

"Whatever." Gunn was heading backwards to the door. "I was leaving anyway. Just came to... talk to Wesley."

He'd found the door and slunk through it almost before he finished speaking. Wesley's heart sank as he saw him go, but he had to chuckle at Angel's expression.

"I'm so sorry."

"Oh, he'll be back. I think." The fact that Gunn had returned a first time was promising in itself. "Is the show over already?"

"Yeah," Angel said absentmindedly. "It's no good anyway. I would have zapped by it if it wasn't for Cordelia. I couldn't believe it when I saw her there."

"Me neither." Funny, how his old crush had showed up on television only minutes before his first kiss with his new one. He chose to see it as a good omen.


	7. Green Card

Going to Wesley's house was way too awkward for Gunn's liking. He'd have preferred it if he could see the guy on his own ground, or on neutral territory like the shelter. At least this was more private, which he supposed was a good thing if he was going to kiss Wes again. On the other hand, if he wasn't going to kiss Wes again...

Shit. He didn't even know what to say to the guy, whether to start with the embarrassing stuff or with the shooting – and that could turn out pretty embarrassing too. As he walked up the stairs to Wesley's apartment he tried to come up with a good opening line. He hadn't expected Wesley to be on the landing outside his door talking on the phone.

"No, I don't know what's wrong. It's not supposed to… Gunn!"

"Hey, Wesley. Haven't seen you around for a while." That would have been a good enough greeting if they'd met on the street, but for showing up at a guy's apartment it was a bit lame.

Wesley didn't object to it, though, just nodded over his shoulder. "Could you get my keys out and let yourself in? I'm in the middle of something."

Gunn fished the key chain from Wesley's pocket, trying not to think too hard of what parts of Wesley that made him touch. He opened the door and inside. Wesley entered after him, still on the phone.

"I told you, I don't know. It's supposed to last another three months... Anything is possible, Anne, but green cards aren't usually revoked for no reason."

Gunn looked up. Wesley's green card had been revoked? Would that mean he had to leave the country? Normally, the answer would have been a definite no. Half of the people Gunn knew didn't even exist by government standards. But Wes was upper class – it didn't show as much anymore, but he was – and might not want to join the ever growing group of illegal immigrants.

"Calm down. Who's Lilah?" A brief pause, and Wesley's face changed in a subtle way. "Ah."

His voice had gone so cold it was startling, and Gunn watched him sharply, trying to figure out what was going on in his mind.

"Anne, I have the feeling this may take some time and effort. I suggest you find someone to take over my job for a while."

"What?" Gunn had to protest at that, but found himself on the receiving end of a stern scowl.

"I'm sorry. I'll try to figure something out. All right? Goodbye, then."

Wesley turned off the cell phone and put it down on the hall table. "Sorry about that. To what do I owe the honour?"

Was that sarcasm? Gunn chose to ignore the possibility, wanting to stay on track. "What did you do that for?"

"Do what?" Wesley asked, heading into the living room. "Lose my green card? It wasn't entirely on purpose, I'm afraid."

"Give up your job like that."

"Give up?" Wesley's voice rose to a level Gunn had never heard before. "Do you have any idea how hard I've worked not to give up? How much effort it takes? Or do you think rebuilding one's life is something done in a coffee break?" He slammed his fist hard into the wall. "I've done everything to stay head above water, and before I know it something like this happens and it's ripped away from me all over again."

Gunn was dumbfounded, although he mentally scoffed at himself for it. This wasn't unexpected – shouldn't be, anyway. It would have been stranger if Wesley didn't think like that. So why had he assumed everything was fine?

"You still got me," he said, trying to bring at least some comfort.

It sounded weak even to his own ears, and Wesley apparently agreed, giving a sound that was halfway between sigh and laughter. "Yes, that's so helpful, Gunn. Especially if you intend to run off every time you make an advance at me."

That hurt, and it was probably meant to. "I'm not running now, am I?"

"You're not making an advance at me now."

There was really just one way to respond that would be the least bit effective. Right now, getting them both a little calmer was a whole lot more important than any fears of where things may be headed, and so Gunn took a few determined strides forward, captured Wesley's head in his hands and kissed him.

It was done more to prove a point than anything else, but he proved it even to himself as the kiss deepened and he stopped thinking of what might come, because just having Wes right here right now was pretty great in itself. When he finally broke loose, he was grinning. This wasn't so scary.

"Not running," he said.

Wesley's face softened slightly, and he reached out for a chair, sitting down without taking his eyes off Gunn. "I'm sorry. That was way out of line. I have no business demanding that you..."

"Save the excuses. You're freaked. I get it."

Wesley looked down, and after a moment's pause started speaking in a very low voice. "Tell me if I'm paranoid, Gunn. Wolfram and Hart – the lawyers who have been helping the shelter – have an interest in the fight club, forcing clients to sponsor it. The first time I came to the fight club, I found that they also had an interest in Angel, of a rather negative kind. From what I understand, they wanted him to stay in the fight club until he died or went completely insane."

Well, that was a perspective Gunn had some understanding for, but nevertheless he wasn't sure he liked what he was hearing. He'd never met any of those lawyers in person, but he knew how highly Anne thought of them, and what kind of big shots they were.

"So I take down the fight club," Wesley continued, "get Angel out of there, and a few days later I get a phone call from Anne, saying my green card has been revoked, and that she has spoken to her lawyers who don't think they can do anything about it. Now, what I want to know is, is all this coincidental?"

"Son of a bitch," Gunn said, feeling a sudden need to find a chair himself. He pulled one close the way Wesley had and sat down without looking. "You really think..."

"I don't know what I think." Wesley rubbed his brow with the back of his hand. "I may be paranoid. I hope I am."

"Cause if you're not..."

"I just made myself some rather powerful enemies."

Not good. So not good, if it was true. "But wouldn't they try to convince you first? Talk to you?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"What about–" Gunn couldn't bring himself to use the word "Angel" about a bloodsucker "–the vampire? Have you talked to him?"

"Not yet." Wesley raised his head and looked pensively at the door – the door to the apartment, not the bedroom one. "He went home last night, and at that point the issue wasn't... quite as pressing. I had other things on my mind."

That reminded Gunn of the reason he'd come. One of the reasons. "Wes... did you shoot someone that night at the fight club?"

He'd have expected some sort of reaction to that question, but Wesley just nodded. "Yes. I take it you, too, read the coroner's report in the papers."

"Yeah. I should have known." Three bodies, two of them ripped into unrecognisable pieces, and the third unmarred except for the wound in his chest.

"I can't regret it, Gunn. I wish I could, but I can't. He made a profit and a sport of the death of living creatures. Evil creatures, perhaps, but they didn't die because they were evil. They died because it was fun to watch. And in any case, I had to get Angel out."

"So you chose the demon over the man?"

"And I'd do it again."

The tension in the room was so thick it was practically touchable, and Gunn knew this was the defining moment. He could bolt over a kiss, but if he bolted over this, he wouldn't have to bother with coming back. Wesley wasn't going to budge. If Gunn wanted to, he could refuse to accept it, maintain that a vampire was a vampire no matter how many souls you threw into the bargain, and that killing a human – especially to save a demon – was simply wrong.

He could do that, and Wesley would let him leave without protest.

"You gotta talk to him, though," he said. "Find out what he knows about these people."

Wesley nodded, and the relief was so clear on his face he must've had known exactly what Gunn had been thinking. "Will you come with me?"

And that son of a bitch just had to keep pushing it. "Yeah. Sure."

The vampire's apartment reminded Gunn of Wesley's first one. Not quite as bad a dump, perhaps, but unlike Wesley, the vamp did nothing to better the appearance. Hell, even his place looked more lived-in than this. There were clothes, books and other random objects strewn over the floor and furniture, and most of it was covered in dust.

He half wished it was proof of the vampire dusting itself, but knew it wasn't so. The dust was too spread out for that. It was just lack of cleaning, and not of the slobby kind. This was a "I'm so low I can't see my surroundings" kind of mess. It hit a little too close to home to be comfortable – no vampire should ever be able to have those feelings. It was a human thing. Had to be.

"Angel? Are you in there?"

"Where is he?" asked Gunn, freaked out by the silence.

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be calling for him."

That patient superiority in Wesley's voice was damn near insufferable, and Gunn mouthed a "bastard" behind his back. He'd promised not to leave. That didn't mean he was anybody's whipping boy. He could finally make sense of what Anne had said about Wesley's tendencies to get into school teacher mode – bad schoolteacher mode, as she'd put it.

Of course, she'd also said that from what she could tell, he did it when he was nervous. It didn't make it any less annoying, but at least a bit easier to take.

Wesley froze, whispering, "Do you hear something?"

Gunn started shaking his head, but in the sudden silence he heard sounds from the next room and changed it into a nod. Very slowly, he proceeded to the door and opened it, revealing the vampire lying on the floor inside, clutching his head in obvious agony.

"I think he's sick."

Wesley pushed past Gunn and leaned down next to the vampire. "Angel? Are you all right?"

The vampire raised his head, and Gunn got a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Wes, don't do that. You don't know..."

Before he'd finished speaking, the vampire was on its feet, grabbing Wesley by the throat and shoving him up against the wall. Gunn cursed himself for letting Wesley get so close. He'd been stupid enough to trust Wesley's assurance that this vampire was different, even though he should have known better. He lunged for the vamp with a stake in his hand and was met with a backhand strike and, bizarrely enough the warning, "Stay away from her! She's dangerous!"

Gunn prepared to hit again, but in order to fight him, the vampire had been forced to shift its grip on Wesley's body, moving down to the shoulders. Clearly the touch set off some memory, because it blinked a couple of times, an incredulous look on its face.

"Wesley?"

"Hello, Angel," Wesley said in a hoarse voice, steadier than Gunn would have anticipated. "We were hoping you could give us some information about a certain matter."

The vampire let go of him and turned for the door. "I don't have time."

"You have time to strangle him but not to talk to him?" Gunn blocked the door, holding up the stake.

The vamp scrutinised him, but more like a gang leader eyeing the new kid around than a demon checking out its lunch. "Can you fight with more than that?" It sounded way too sane for someone who'd been raving half a minute earlier, and although Gunn would never have openly admitted it, it made his skin crawl.

"You bet I can."

"Good. Grab a sword, then, and we'll talk on the way."

Gunn stared, which caused the vampire to sigh. "You came here to talk, not to fight me. If you fight with me, we can talk on the way. And I really don't have time for this. There's a demon about to attack a girl ten blocks away."

"How do you know that?" But the vampire had already lost interest in him, brushing him aside and heading for something in the next room. "How does he know that? Does he even know that?"

Wesley shrugged. "I think we'd better follow him."

There was a loud clatter of metal from the next room, and then the vamp re-emerged, carrying the hugest goddamned sword Gunn had ever seen.

"It's not dark outside yet. We'd better take the sewers."

Gunn glared at Wesley. "Sewers?"

"Sewers," he repeated later, stumbling through said sewers holding a large axe in one hand while he pressed the other over his mouth and nose. "I know I said I'd stay, but you're really pushing it, English."

"You can leave if you want." Wesley's voice was slightly choked, since his one hand was occupied by the short sword he was carrying. "I wouldn't hold it against you."

"I said I'd stay, didn't I? I just don't want to take orders from you. And I definitely don't want to take orders from some crazy vampire running off on a whim to fight monsters."

"I wouldn't call a supernatural vision a 'whim', Gunn. Besides, the worst thing that can happen is that we get a bit dirty and there's nothing there to fight."

"No, the worst thing that can happen is that he decides there is something to fight, and we're it."

The vampire had been ignoring them so far, but now it said over its shoulder, "I didn't mean to hurt him."

"And that's supposed to put me at ease?"

It stopped and turned to look at him. "I promise not to start fighting until you two say so." Its eyes drifted over to Wesley. "Are you sure you'll be okay?"

"Angel," Wesley said, and despite everything it was pretty funny to hear that reasonable tone of voice used against a bloodsucker. "I picked a gladius precisely because it's meant to be used with one hand. If I were the one with the over-dimensioned claymore you would have reason to worry. And I can assure you I don't intend to rush into a fight if I believe you or Gunn better equipped to handle it without me."

The vamp looked like it was about to protest, but closed its mouth, shrugged, and started to walk again, so fast they had to half-run to keep up. "What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"What do you know of a law firm called Wolfram and Hart?"

"They're bad." It didn't seem very surprised by the question, Gunn noticed.

"How bad is that?" It was clear from Wesley's voice that he still hoped to be able to reason his way out of this green card situation.

"Worse than whatever you're thinking. There are demons causing more mayhem, but half of the time Wolfram and Hart are the people paying those demons. If there's some sort of dirty business in this town they're not involved in, I sure don't know what it is. Does that answer your question?"

Wesley, who had turned pale, nodded mutely. So much for a chance of getting that green card back, Gunn thought, and that thought was enough to make him forget the stench and the stupidity of all this, because he might not get the chance to spend much more time with Wesley.

So he didn't say anything more until they climbed up to the surface and he found there was actually a demon up there. Big, grey, ugly demon.

"Holy shit!"

"Is that a permission to fight?" the vamp asked, ready with the sword.

"Yes! Fuck! Fight it now!"

He followed his own advice, lunging in with the axe. Wesley, he saw, had gone to pull the girl out of the demon's reach. Good thinking – if he got close enough to get any proper use of his short sword he'd be in deep trouble anyway. That massive "claymore" the vampire sported suddenly didn't seem like overkill.

For about fifteen minutes after that he shut off his thoughts of anything that didn't have to do with the fight, until the vampire finally cut off the creature's head, which bounced across the ground to the girl. At least she didn't scream or faint or something stupid like that, just took a step back and started sobbing.

"You're good," the vampire said as if that was the surprising bit about this fight.

"Yeah? Well, so are you."

There was a small patch of grass nearby, not deserving the name of a lawn, and Gunn went over there to clean his axe. While he was trying to wipe of the sticky demon blood he was interrupted by the vampire moaning, "Oh God, now she's feeding on it!

Gunn spun around, not sure what he'd be seeing, but the girl was still standing as far away from the demon as she could come without backing through the wall, trying to stop her tears. A shiver ran up his spine. If seeing the vampire go from crazy to normal in a manner of seconds had been spooky, seeing the process reversed was a lot worse. But there was no rage in the vampire's face now, only pain and disgust, and strangely enough, it made him look more human.

Gunn didn't want to think about that, so he finished cleaning up his axe and headed back to Wesley, surprised to see that his sword was stained as well.

"You got some shots in after all?"

"Better for me if I hadn't," Wesley said wryly. "Have you noticed how this blood is barely even liquid?"

"Yeah, and that's the best part of it." Gunn sighed and threw another glance at the confused vampire on the other side of the dead demon. This day was just getting worse by the minute. "Can we go now?"

Wesley stuck his keys back in his pocket and went to make some coffee. Right now, he very much needed it.

Gunn was leaning against the doorframe, watching as Wesley got the percolator ready. "You're making it too strong."

"I like it strong. I've got milk and sugar for you if you don't."

"Will you go back to England?"

That wasn't the response he had expected, and he very nearly made the coffee too strong for himself as well. "No."

"Why not?"

He forced his hand not to shake as he put the measure and the coffee bag back in the cupboard. "Mainly because I hate it there. Although we do have better winters."

Gunn laughed at this, but the sound was more concerned than anything else. So, what will you do? Just hang with us, or..."

'Hang with us', obviously, meant the demon fighting – or at the very least helping out with the demon fighting, with the support, research or anything else a Slayer might need. And that was what he was meant for, after all. He still had that purpose, more than ever before, and he was grateful for it. It just didn't pay the bills anymore.

Although if Angel had described the city correctly, perhaps it could. There were supernatural fight clubs, brothels, lawyers... somewhere in all this, there had to be someone needing a Watcher.

"Wolfram and Hart get paid to represent evil," he thought out loud. The percolator beeped, but he didn't have time for it. "Perhaps I could represent good."

"You're gonna be a lawyer?"

Gunn sounded incredulous, and Wesley quite agreed with him. "Don't be ridiculous. I couldn't go anywhere near a courtroom."

"So what do you plan to do?"

He wasn't planning anything at all, and just let his mind wander, trying to find the stray thought lingering there. "What I do now, I suppose. Research things. Perform simple spells. Kill demons, if you'll help me. Whatever people need me to do."

Gunn was beginning to look interested, if still very doubtful. "You mean like an investigations agency or something?"

Wesley's mind indicated that it believed this to be the word it had been looking for by stopping all thoughts for a second. When it started to move again, he said, "I think I do, yes. Although I suspect one should really have a license for that sort of thing..."

"For investigating demons?" Gunn pulled up a chair and sat down. "Not hardly. But how the hell are you going to get clients?"

"There are plenty of places I could put up ads," he said slowly, realising the consequences of what was coming out of his mouth. Placing his name and phone number all over town might not be the best course of action if the lawyers really had been tampering with his green card.

"Saying what?" Gunn asked with a grin. "'Wesley Wyndham-Pryce Magical Investigations, If It Haunts You We Hunt It'?"

"I can't have my name on it." Though anonymous ads weren't exactly designed to induce trust and comfort. "If you're in on this... but then, you probably shouldn't risk it either."

Gunn was shaking his head before Wesley had even stopped talking. "Forget it. This is your gig."

Wesley's heart sank, and he went to get the coffee so as to avoid looking at Gunn. "Of course. I shouldn't have assumed..."

"Wes, don't be an idiot. I want to work with you. I'm just not going to take the credit for what's yours."

"Oh. Well." He poured the coffee and went to sit down, trying not to smile. "Gunn Investigations has a certain ring to it, though."

"No way."

"Or a compromise: Gunn Investigations of Magic and the Paranormal."

Gunn frowned hard, and Wesley found that not smiling was quite an impossible task. "How is that a compromise?"

"I'll be the acronym."

After a brief, puzzled silence, Gunn burst into laughter. "You sick bastard." The laughter died as fast as it had started, and instead Gunn sported a far too familiar guilty expression. "Sorry."

"I made a joke," Wesley said, rather annoyed. "You are permitted to laugh. In fact, it might even be considered polite to do so."

"Yeah." But the guilty expression didn't disappear.

Wesley sipped his coffee, waiting for Gunn to get over his imagined faux pas.

"So you're really serious about this?"

"I don't know. I think so. What do you say?"

Gunn's eyes were starting to glitter. "I say we go for it."

If the guy behind the counter was Old Al himself, he sure deserved the nickname. Even from where Gunn was standing, trying to outstare an ancient mask of some sort, the guy looked downright mouldy. He appeared to be human, but only in the loosest sense of the word. Gunn seriously suspected that the blue girl over at the demon brothel – and God did he ever want to forget seeing that place – had been on something. He should've known the opininon of a girl who spelled Marie with two Es had to be out of whack.

"How is this meant to be read?" the old man asked, turning over in his hand the flyer Wesley had given him. "Private Eye or just Private?"

"Either way would work," Wesley explained for the fifth time that day. "You could also read it Private Watcher."

"Is that so?" Old Al said, and from the tone of his voice maybe that Maree girl hadn't been so dumb after all. None of the others had shown any reaction to the word 'Watcher'. He turned the flyer over a few more times, as if that would cause it to reveal hidden text. "Where else are you putting it up?"

"Well, we've been to Madame Dorian's, Sleipner Store, Hecate..."

"Hecate stinks," the old man said sharply. "The other places aren't too bad, but the people over at Hecate are the kind who'll tell you to walk backwards around a churchyard at midnight on Maundy Thursday when you can walk backwards around your own kitchen on any Thursday night at all and get the same effect. And they'll charge you an a... a fortune."

Gunn recognized the half-take, and it made him both more and less sympathetic towards the old man at the same time. So he was human enough to make a fool of himself. That would have made him a lot more relieved if Wesley hadn't been in the middle.

Not that Wesley seemed bothered by it. He only gave a polite half-smile and headed into a discussion about spells that was definitely beyond Gunn's territory. It seemed amiable enough, and Gunn turned his attention back to the mask. The creepy thing was still staring at him.

"Four flowers for a midsummer night's spell? All my sources have seven or nine."

"Of course they do. They have no idea what works, so they throw in what worked last time – magical numbers, silence, nudity... All you need is the right four flowers, mark my word."

From the corner of his eye, Gunn could see that Old Al was leaning forward, waving a finger in front of Wesley's face like some parody of a school teacher.

"Rites are all very well when they're needed, my boy, but they're not a replacement for knowledge."

Gunn stifled a laugh, but Wesley showed no sign of appreciating the joke of the situation. On the contrary, he looked ready to start taking notes. Gunn rolled his eyes at the ancient mask.

It winked at him.

Gunn did a double-take. Both its eyes were open now, but he could have sworn one of them had been closed for a moment there. And its grin was looking even cheekier than before. Creepy. Still, kind of cool at the same time. At least someone here had a sense of humour.

"Hey, how much for the mask?" he asked, walking up to the counter. Up close, he could see that Old Al really was mouldy – or if it wasn't mould, it was something very like it. Ew.

"Robert?" Old Al said, knitting his eyebrows so close together they might never part. "Robert's not for sale. He gives me a prophecy every full moon, steady as a clockwork. An accurate one, too. You wouldn't want him." He waved his hands dismissively. "I'll get you that book now."

As Old Al hobbled into the back room for whatever book he was getting, Gunn turned to Wesley. "So, you two are getting along, huh?"

Wesley's grin was much too boyish. "He's letting me borrow his copy of the Book of Verdandi. Borrow it! If he'd offered to sell it... but I could never afford it anyway. Do you have any idea what this means?"

"No," Gunn admitted, daring to run his hand through Wesley's hair now that they were alone. "But as long as you're happy, that's okay."

"Happy? Gunn, if this works, if it really works, then it's the best thing I've ever done in my life. And I think it will work. I think I'm getting a foot in."

"Because some mouldy old guy is letting you borrow a book?"

The grin wouldn't go away. "He may be mouldy, but he's good."

"So how long until we know?"

Wesley put down his magazine, even though he'd just found a small notice about Cordelia Chase from "One Life to Live" negotiating for her own series. After fifteen minutes of browsing through trash about soap stars getting into near-fatal accidents or even worse marriages, he thought he deserved to read that one. Particularly since he'd been reading all that to avoid thinking of Gunn's question.

"I don't know. Certainly not yet. People will have to actually notice the flyers first, read them, write down our phone number..." He tried to smile. "Not to mention get a demon problem."

"Yeah, well, that last shouldn't take more than ten minutes in this town."

Wesley smiled politely and returned to his magazine. It really did seem like Cordelia was getting somewhere in life. Hardly surprising, really.

The phone rang. Oh, dear. Wesley looked at Gunn, who shrugged and gestured at the phone. You take it. Right. And he wouldn't be the least bit disappointed if it wasn't a client.

"Hello?"

"Oh, hello, Wesley. This is Lindsey MacDonald. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to call. I've been a bit busy."

So, not a client, and like he had promised himself, he wasn't disappointed. He was much too occupied by the cold fury he was feeling. That calm, pleasant voice with its nearly unnoticable accent was nearly unbearable now that he'd heard what Angel had to say about its owner.

"I see."

"This business with your green card must have been very disturbing, of course, but you'll be pleased to know that I think we can fix it."

"Really?" His voice was cold, but his palm was getting sweaty, and he could see Gunn's face taking on an expression of increasing concern.

"Sure. From what I can tell it's just an administration problem – you know what that's like. We'll have you back at the shelter in no time. Although..."

Here it was. "Yes?"

"I've been hearing some rather alarming things about you lately. Particularly that you seem to have spent some time around a vampire named Angel."

"That's true, I have."

"Well, as your lawyer, I feel I have to warn you about him. He's pretty bad news, even for a vampire. The kind who gets people into trouble, you know what I mean? I'd hate to see you get hurt – or killed. Plus, as a lawyer, I have some responsibility towards the shelter. Making sure the employees have the kids' best interest at heart and don't keep the wrong company. Or try to fake a green card, if that should prove to be the case."

"Mr. MacDonald," Wesley said, gripping the phone hard. "What's that expression again? Ah, yes. Fuck you. This is worth losing my job over."

He turned off the phone and lay it on the table, shivering with rage. Gunn stepped up to him and lay a calming hand on his upper arm.

"The point of no return, huh?"

"I may be standing on a ticking bomb here," Wesley said, closing his eyes in order to think better.

"Yeah? Well, you're not standing there alone. We're partners now, remember?"

Wesley smiled and opened his eyes just in time to see Gunn blush harder than should have been possible for someone so dark.

"Uh, when I said 'partner', I meant that in a strictly... purely..."

Wesley wasn't quite as good as Gunn at the grab and kiss routine, but he gave it his best shot. When they were done, he leaned back a bit and watched Gunn expectantly. If his mouth was curling into a smirk, it wasn't entirely his own fault.

Gunn licked his lips. "Maybe not all that strictly."

"Maybe not," Wesley said, and kissed him again.


	8. The Visitors

"Angel," Wesley said after he had tripped on a discarded pair of shoes. "Far be it from me to comment on how others chose to live, but this is a sty."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does, rather." Wesley pushed aside the shoes with his foot to make a clear path. "Even my place looks better than this. In fact, even Gunn's place looks better than this. And I know you don't have to worry about such things as hygiene, but there's the question of comfort as well..."

He moved to sit down, but quickly changed his mind about that when he found a greasy hairbrush on the chair. Well, at least it seemed Angel still took the time to do his hair. Although the grease on the brush looked hardened and old, so one couldn't tell for sure.

"I'm concerned about you."

"He hasn't talked to me in days," Angel complained, pacing the room. "It's always Darla. Tormenting me. She hates me, and yet she keeps telling me to come back... offers me meals..."

Something clicked in Wesley's brain. "Angel, how long has it been since you ate?"

"I don't eat."

"How long since you last fed?"

Angel shook his head slowly. "I mustn't. It's wrong."

"It's only wrong if they're human, Angel. You know that, right?" Waiting for a reply didn't seem worth the effort, and so Wesley went into Angel's kitchen to see if the vampire still had some blood left. He found a single bag in the refrigerator and made a mental note to buy more – he doubted Angel would think to do so.

"Here," he said, handing the bag to Angel, who had followed him into the kitchen. "Eat this. It's no different from blood sausages or black soup, so I don't want to hear any complaints."

"Wesley," Angel said with sudden clarity and a touch of humour, "blood sausages are gross."

Wesley glared at him and wished he could still cross his arms. "Eat."

Angel obediently opened the bag and took a sip. He grimaced a little. "It's cold."

"If you want it warm, you'll have to heat it yourself," Wesley said, hoping against hope that Angel would take the challenge. When Angel just shrugged and kept drinking, he stifled a sigh.

"I saw Faith yesterday," Angel said, licking a few drops of blood from his lips. "I think it was yesterday."

Wesley's stomach twisted itself into a knot. Even after everything that had happened, he still felt guilty about Faith. She'd been all the proof he would ever need of what a failure he was. Was he tried to tell himself. That'll change. But he didn't believe it.

"Really?" he said, trying to sound carefree. "What did she do?"

"She shot me with a crossbow." Angel frowned. "Tried to shoot me. I caught the bolt. Still have it somewhere."

Wesley stared at him. This was disturbing on so very many levels. "You mean you actually saw her? For real?"

"I think so." There was a hint of uncertainty in Angel's eyes. "I'll see if I can find it."

He headed off, and Wesley could hardly breathe, half wishing this to be just another crazy spell, as troublesome as that would be. Then Angel returned with a crossbow bolt in hand, holding it up to ask for a second opinion. Wesley exhaled, the harshness of his breath making his lungs hurt.

"You really saw her. Good Lord."

"And she really tried to kill me." Angel sounded hurt, as if this had been the first time.

"But she's supposed to be in a coma!" Wesley heard how ridiculously indignant his voice sounded, as if an error had been made higher up in the organisation and all he had to do was file a complaint.

"Slayers heal."

That was true, and blast them for it. For the first time, Wesley wondered if breaking all ties to his previous life had been such a good thing. If he'd kept in touch with the council... but no, the council wouldn't have cared. Rupert Giles, possibly, would have taken a minute to warn him, even if they had never precisely liked each other.

All those would haves and could haves didn't matter now. Faith was awake, and judging from her run-in with Angel her time in a coma hadn't improved her disposition. No reason why it should, of course. He'd fail her horribly before, but perhaps it wasn't too late yet. Perhaps he could talk to her somehow – preferably before she attacked Angel again. Faith might lack many Slayer traits, but she still had the determination.

None of this seemed to bother Angel anymore. On the contrary, his face was taking on a relieved smile. "Oh, there you are!"

As long as one of them was happy, that was all very spiffy, but Wesley still wished imaginary Doyle hadn't taken this moment to appear. It rather spoiled any chance of having an actual conversation with Angel.

If the man hadn't talked to Angel for days, Wesley thought wryly, aware of just how bizarre his line of reasoning was, would it hurt to wait ten more minutes?

Considering everything he'd learned, it was hardly surprising that Wesley felt his heart race when he came home and found the door to his flat wide open. It soon went back to it's normal rhythm as he saw Gunn sitting on the floor, legs akimbo, reading some advertising brochures.

"How on earth did you get in?" Wesley asked, rather sharply. He didn't appreciate the thought of people turning up in his home without warning, even if said "people" was Gunn.

"Magic." Gunn put down the brochure and stood up. "And before you say anything, I wasn't the one to wield it. There was this delivery guy from Sleipner Store coming over with a bunch of stuff, and apparently he couldn't wait. Impatient guy. So once he was in, I figured what the heck, I might as well wait inside. Had to keep the door open for the smell anyway."

Wesley hadn't even noticed a smell, but now he felt the weak tinge of sweet gale. The plant was only used for good purposes and so the smell of it didn't bother him, but if one wasn't used to the strong scents of a magical laboratory, it might be rather overwhelming.

"I see."

Gunn had stepped quite a bit closer now, and Wesley was all too aware of his presence, a lot more dizzying than any herbal scent. He leaned in for a kiss and was both surprised and hurt when Gunn turned his head away.

"So, what's in those boxes?"

"Setups for a spell." Wesley automatically moved up to the boxes, and Gunn followed almost move by move. So whatever that had been a moment ago, it didn't seem like Gunn was actually angry with him. Not that there was any reason why he should be – well, any particular reason that hadn't been there last time they met, anyway.

"It's a false address spell," he continued. "Aimed specifically at lawyers, policemen and the like. At least that's what I ordered, and the clerk seemed fairly confident they would be able to help me out in that respect."

"False address, huh?" Gunn looked at the boxes with somewhat more interest than before. "How'll that work?"

"I'm not quite sure. I think it'll just give them the runaround if they try to find their way here."

"I like the sound of that."

Gunn's voice was in his ear now, and he turned around to catch that mouth, try to feel the warmth of that voice. This time, Gunn didn't move away, but he flinched ever so slightly. Why now, Wesley could help but wonder, when it hadn't happened during the first kiss, or the third, or the fifth?

"What's wrong?" he asked when he had let go.

"There's nothing wrong," Gunn said, his eyes drifting away. "Or not really. It's just... I want something."

Wesley felt his eyebrows shoot up. "Could you be more specific?"

"No." Gunn was fidgeting, which meant whatever was going on had to be serious. But Wesley was still stumped when Gunn suddenly burst out, "This would've been so much easier if you were a girl!"

"But I'm not."

"I know. And it's not that I want you to be, it's just... I don't know what to do next."

The cogwheels made a few more turns and finally set into place. "You want to take this further."

"I don't know!" Gunn stuck his hands in his pockets and took a step back. "I don't even know what 'further' is."

Wesley had to smile at that. "Whatever you want it to be."

"Don't fuck with me, Wes."

The smile turned into a grin. "Oh, really?"

Gunn's sudden irritation waned as fast as it had appeared, and he looked so unsure Wesley very nearly felt sorry for him. But just very nearly, because this was much too delightful for that.

"Is that what you want?"

"Gunn," Wesley said, moving in again, sneaking his arm around Gunn's waist. He felt a moment of tension in that strong back, and squeezed gently to ease it. "I want anything and everything with you. But I have no intention of being impatient about it."

Gunn's back muscles relaxed noticeably. "I think it's time for something, though. I mean, I started thinking I got a... boyfriend... now, so why do I still lock myself into my room to jerk off... when it's him I'm thinking about?"

Regardless of the crude phrasing, that had to be the finest compliment Wesley had ever received. He leaned down and kissed the pit between Gunn's collarbones to avoid showing how deeply it had touched him. Very slowly, he also moved his hand from Gunn's back to his crotch. From what he found, it seemed Gunn's revelation had come at an acute moment.

Gunn breathed in sharply. "What are you doing?"

"I'm rubbing your willie, Gunn. What did you think I was doing?"

He was met with a low laughter. "My what?"

Wesley wondered the same thing. What on earth had possessed him to use that word? He wasn't in school anymore. "Your cock," he said firmly.

"You're gonna jerk me off?"

"If you want," Wesley said, kissing Gunn's neck. He wished he could have moved his kisses further down the chest, but his hand was busy with the zipper of Gunn's jeans, so he couldn't unbutton the shirt.

There was a brief silence, and then Gunn blurted out, "How about a blow job? I mean... uh... if you'd..."

The only thing unusual with that request was the embarrassment with which it was uttered, but Wesley still had to think it over. He thought he had a condom in his wallet, but wasn't a hundred about it. "Hang on," he said, forced to let go of Gunn to feel for his wallet in his jacket pocket. He found it and started looking it over, finally having to take it between his teeth to get to the tiniest compartments. Ah, yes. There it was.

He dropped the wallet on the floor, seeing no reason to bother with it, and started ripping open the condom package.

"Are you really supposed to use a condom?" Gunn asked.

"Yes, I am," Wes said, choosing not to point out what kind of women were in Gunn's – and his – circle of friends. "That's why it's flavoured. Now, if you'd like to make yourself useful, you could take of your shirt."

Gunn obliged, and Wesley moved in closer again, having gotten the condom out of the package and keeping it in his mouth. He ran his fingers down Gunn's chest, trailing the little drops of sweat he found there. Gunn answered by caressing his back, and he shivered in delight and anticipation before dropping to his knees. Like Gregory had once taught him so many years ago, he took hold of Gunn's cock and slowly unrolled the condom with his lips and tongue.

"Holy shit," Gunn said and grabbed hold on the hair at the back of Wesley's head. It hurt, a bit, but soon the hard grip turned into a caress. "Where did you learn that?"

Wesley was entirely grateful that his mouth was busy, because he doubted this was the time to talk about his early sexual experiences. One might even call it a turn-off. He forced those thoughts to the back of his mind and glanced up as he continued working. Gunn looked wonderful without a shirt. Since the condom was now secured by his mouth, he let his hand move up to Gunn's arse and then past it up his sweaty back.

"Do you always blow people on a moment's notice?" Gunn asked. His breath was becoming a bit laboured.

"Mhm," Wesley mumbled, wondering if Gunn would continue to ask potentially embarrassing questions during all their future intimate moments. If so, they might have to have an actual talk about certain things, or he'd be condemned to avoid the answers by forever performing fellatio.

But Gunn stopped talking soon enough, and there was even a moment when Wesley could have sworn that he also stopped breathing. And then he felt the shift in sensation followed by Gunn's cock softening, and he withdrew, gripping the condom to keep it from slipping off. By now he was rather aroused himself, although he knew Gunn was in no way ready to return the favour.

"So," he said as he stood up, "that was fun, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. It was." Gunn put a sweaty hand on Wesley's shoulder and pulled him a bit closer. "Thanks."

"My pleasure," Wesley replied, truly meaning it. All of a sudden he felt shy, uncertain of what to do next. This wasn't the quick shag of a school dorm or a public bathroom, but it wasn't the all-nighter of a new but fully formed relationship either. He'd never blown a 'virgin' before, and he kept telling himself to take it slow... but that wasn't what he wanted at all. And at the very least Gunn was still there, his hand leaning heavily on Wesley's back in a way that didn't indicate that he was about to leave.

And then his cell phone rang. Obviously, because such was the way of the world.

"Aren't you taking it?" Gunn asked without letting go.

"Blast it."

"Could be a client."

"Blast it anyway."

But Gunn dug into Wesley's jacket with his free hand and caught the cell phone, turning it on. "Charles Gunn. Yeah, that's us. Uh-huh? Hang on."

He did let go at that moment, to cover the phone while he asked, "Can you handle a poltergeist?"

Wesley nodded and held out a hand.

"This seems like a case for my partner, Mr. Pryce," Gunn said into the phone, sounding very businesslike. "I'll put you through."

'Mr Pryce' Wesley mouthed in slightly indignant bemusement, but Gunn was reaching out the phone for him and he had to take it. "Hello?"

As soon as he heard the bellowing voice from the other end he knew that Gunn had been right in his judgment. This was very much not a man who'd be put at ease by long, hyphenated surnames.

"My name is Carl Hamilton and I have a poltergeist in my house," the man boomed. "Can you get rid of it for me?"

"Yes, yes I can," Wesley said, careful not to add 'I think'. He'd never actually exorcised a poltergeist before, but done enough reading on the subject to think he knew the ritual by heart. "When would you like the exorcism to take place?"

"Right away, of course! It's breaking everything in the house!"

"Very well," Wesley sighed. He wondered what Mr. Hamilton would have done if he had said that they were a terribly busy firm and that he couldn't possibly get to the poltergeist until next Friday at the earliest. But since he had no other clients at all, that was a completely hypothetical situation and he didn't have to listen to the man getting a heart attack from pure rage. "I will pick up the supplies and be right over. What's the address?"

He got the address and turned off the phone, looking morosely at Gunn, who'd put his shirt back on. A pity, that. "I'll have to leave."

"No need to look so sad," Gunn said with a shrug. "First client is cause of celebration, right?"

"Sure, if we find any time for it."

"I really think you could have called and told us you would be late."

"I'm very sorry," Wesley said, taking a break in his Latin chanting. The poltergeist rattled the kitchen door, making him have to talk a lot louder. He'd get a sore throat if it continued like this for much longer. "I did say I'd have to pick up supplies."

"But did you say you had to do it in three different stores?" the old man asked, poking him in the stomach with his walking stick. "No you did not! I heard your conversation!"

Wesley didn't say anything, because he felt it was pointless to try and explain that if he had known that the first two stores wouldn't have all the supplies he needed, he'd obviously have gone to the third right away. At least Carl Hamilton currently let Bruce handle all the berating on his own, instead of helping out with his booming voice.

"My son hasn't been able to work all day!" Bruce barked.

Wesley glanced at Carl's work, a seven foot half-finished black stone sculpture in the shape of a wrinkly ball. He had a hard time getting used to the idea that a man who looked like a blend of Captain Haddock and an evil Santa Claus was a sculptor – in stone, admittedly, but still.

"I'm sorry about that. I'll have your problem fixed soon."

At this, the wrinkly ball started to rock back and forth in the most worrying manner. Carl Hamilton uttered a row of phrases that made him resemble Captain Haddock more than every and ran up to it, attempting to steady it.

"Get that damned thing out!" he bellowed.

Wesley finished the spell and gave Carl a cold look. "Tell it to leave, then."

Carl was much too angry to ask question, and so he roared, "Get out of my house, ghost!"

The noise crescendoed to an unbearable level and then suddenly disappeared so fast that Wesley briefly wondered if it had deafened him, until he heard Bruce Hamilton whisper, "Holy fuck."

Carl Hamilton sat down heavily on a wooden chair. "I'll be damned. That's all it took?"

"The spell weakened the poltergeist's defences," Wesley said, starting to pack up his things. "After it had kicked in, it was mostly a match of willpower. Yours was stronger."

"I'd say it was." Carl's face got a jovial grin, which made him look a lot more sympathetic. "I'd never let myself be beaten by some ghost at anything. Now, how much do I owe you?"

What on earth was the market value of such a service? He should have asked around as he was handing out posters and flyers. As it was, he had to give a rough estimate and hope it was in the neighbourhood of the expected price. "Seventy-five?"

To his relief, Carl only nodded. "Check okay?"

"Check's fine."

As Carl headed into another room, presumably to write a check, Bruce went up to Wesley and started on something that might have been an apology, only it was so long-winded, aggressive and full of inconsequential anecdotes that it was truly hard to tell.

"And the thing about evil," said Bruce, although it seemed utterly unlikely that he'd ever had to fight any worse evil than himself, "is that you have to be firm with it. It's always like that, isn't it? Take that story in the Bible with Jesus out in the desert."

"Mm," Wesley said, biting his tongue so as to not forget himself and point out that there were types of evil where firmness would get you nothing except your brains eaten, and that in cases like those a large flame thrower might prove more helpful. The customer was always right, after all. But he was still very grateful when his phone rang, and he flipped it open hoping it wouldn't be a client – he could use more of those, sure, but not right now.

"Pryce."

A warm laughter was heard from the other end. "You've taken to that name, huh?"

"Of course." He made a half-hearted attempt to stop himself from smiling into the phone. He'd really prefer it if he looked like a no-nonsense, first-class exorcist rather than a lovesick teenager. "Where are you?"

"Cresslaw road, clearing out a vampire nest. We could use you here."

The address sounded vaguely familiar, and Wesley frowned. "Didn't you clear out a vampire nest there last week?"

"Yeah, that's just the thing. They seem to have worked some mojo here – there are weird scrawlings all over the place. You think you could help us figure out what it is?"

"Absolutely." Carl Hamilton was entering again with a check, and Wesley nodded for him to wait. "I'll go fetch the books I need and be right over."

"Okay. I'm checking the other nest we did that day, just in case, but if I'm not back when you come over I'm sure Alonna will be."

That was slightly disappointing, but he could see Gunn's point. And since the place would be crowded with people from the gang anyway, it hardly mattered. He said his goodbyes and put the phone back in his jacket pocket.

"Thank you," he said as he accepted the check from Carl Hamilton. "It has been a pleasure doing business with you."

That was a complete and utter lie, of course, but now that it was over it rather did feel like a pleasure to have done something like that and gotten seventy-five dollars out of it. Leaving was even more of a pleasure, and he actually whistled a tune on the bus home.

Once again, he returned to find the door open.

He'd never know how Faith got in. Certainly not by force, since the door was whole. Maybe she broke it open, or used a spell, though the thought of anyone selling spells to that girl was deeply disturbing. Even more disturbing, in fact, than having one's kidneys used as a punch bag.

"Hey, Wes, old boy!" She leaned down between punches, tilting her head so her hair wouldn't fall into her face. "You're not fading on me, are you? It's no fun if you're unconscious."

Wesley was a lot further from unconscious than he wanted to be, but he was keeping his mind busy. Whenever he thought of what Faith was currently doing, his mind leaped to what she would be doing next, and that made the pain so much worse. Without the anticipation, he could stand it – it was still a lot more pleasant than sitting around for days feeling his flesh rot.

And that thought set his imagination off again. Damn it. He forced himself to think of the door. She could probably have opened it with a skeleton key quite easily. The lock was uncomplicated after all, it wouldn't take more than a minute, and the neighbours wouldn't question.

Damn it again.

Her fist landed on his jaw, and since his reflection about the neighbours had brought him back to his surroundings – they wouldn't check up on him either – he anticipated the next blow and balked at it. Foolish of him. Gunn had told him time and time again that you were to move your head forward if someone was about to hit it, since that caused less damage to the neck. Even worse, his move made the rope tied around his body tighten further, and it was already half strangling him.

He gave a low, muffled moan through the gag, and Faith's face lit up at the sound, as eager as a little girl who had been given a present. "Life in you after all, huh? Kinda pleased to see it."

Such encouragement had evidently given her new energy, and he had plenty of time to regret it as Faith rained punches down on his face, his chest, his lower regions... every time the pain from one place started to blur, she started on another.

But after a while, her enthusiasm seemed to fade. She was getting bored, and he would have found that a lot more comforting if he thought she had any particular reason to want him alive after she finished with him.

She took a step backwards, watching the painting on the wall next to her. It was a badly done framed reproduction of a Van Gogh put up by the tenant before Wesley, but it was the only decoration in the room, and Wesley had kept it hanging because it was better than the wall, if just barely. It wasn't like Faith to show an interest in such things, and Wesley came to a conclusion concerning what she wanted with it just as her elbow hit the glass.

She was humming to herself as she picked up the largest of the glass shards from the floor and stepped over the rest to get back to Wesley's chair. "You've been doing better than I thought, so far." She drew the shard down his face. "But there are five basic torture groups, and I'm game for all of them if you are."

The cut stung a little, but was noticeably less painful than the beating had been. The thought of three more torture groups past this frightened him more. As long as she wasn't cutting out large chunks of flesh...

He was really causing more damage to himself than she was, and that was saying a lot.

As she trailed the shard over his chest, he forced himself to stop thinking altogether. All his thoughts came back to fearful anticipation anyway. He wished they could have taught him meditation techniques at the Council – but watchers weren't supposed to end up in situations like these. Danger was for Slayers, and Slayers were to handle it.

Faith suddenly jumped onto his lap. "You look bored. Hell, I'm bored. What's the problem? Aren't I bad enough for you?" She put the shard under his pinned-up sleeve and lifted it. "Too much pain already? Let's see what I'm up against."

He closed his eyes as she started cutting through the cloth. There was no way for him to stop her, but he certainly wasn't going to watch.

"I'll be damned..." she said, and he was entirely grateful he couldn't see her expression, because the quiver in her voice was bad enough. But it didn't take too long for her to get back to flippant. "That's some piece of work."

He didn't need to be told. The first night home from the hospital, he'd learned the sight of his shoulder by heart, and during the long months after that, he had learned what it meant. He recalled the number of times he had thought the surprises were over, only to find himself wrong. Those times had become few and far between, but he certainly hadn't expected the pain and humiliation as she cut that God-damned glass shard into scarred flesh.

The cut caused his phantom arm to shoot out. It immediately started trying to twist itself around like laundry wrung dry, and he had to bite the gag hard not to scream. He could always throttle her with the phantom, but what good was pretend murder when the situation was real?

"It's no good," she said, her voice pouty. "I could never hope to improve on something like that."

The weight on his lap shifted, and then he felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder. His eyes flew up automatically, and fear filled his heart.

"I guess I'll have to settle for making a copy."

Please, God, he thought, don't let her do it. Please don't let her. He couldn't turn his mind off any longer, couldn't ignore the images that came with the pain. All he could do was pray, and praying had never been a strong suit. Church had always just been an enlarged version of his family's dining room, with God presiding in the top chair, and as soon as he could away with not going, he had. But now he needed all the help he could get, even from such an unlikely source.

"Can you imagine what that would be like?" she asked, full of obvious fascination, and he could, far too well. He didn't need her whispered details in his ear to start sweating, but she seemed at last to have understood what would get to him and kept adding new things to his frantic imagination. It didn't matter that the shard was only trailing a circle around his shoulder, barely scraping the skin enough to scar.

"You want me to stop?"

He did, but he wasn't going to beg, not if his life depended on it. Instead he nodded over his shoulder, and when she looked down to see what he meant he extended his middle finger at her. He couldn't move much, but that he could do, and he felt a moment of triumph at having not given in to her, a moment was very quickly killed when she grabbed his hand and bent the finger back until it broke. Jesus Christ! He'd lost a limb – how could a small broken bone make him want to throw up?

"Still not bad enough for you? How about I break them all before I rip it off?"

Please God, please God... but if his prayers had been pointless before, how much more so would they be now that he had proven to be so utterly foolish. Begging wouldn't have helped, no, but prolonging the pain by ticking her off still was a very bad idea.

Someone started knocking hard on the door, and his heart started pounding with hope. His first thoughts went to Gunn – who was bound to have missed him by now, and at least Gunn would stand a bit of a chance against a Slayer. It had to be Gunn, couldn't be the neighbours. They'd never be so persistent in their knocking.

"Wes?" yelled a female voice from outside. "Are you in there?"

Not Gunn. Alonna. Good Lord, if Faith killed her it would devastate Gunn. He mustn't let that happen, but how could he do anything about it? All he could offer was a muffled cry as Faith went to the door, unlocked it, slammed it open and grabbed Alonna by the hair.

"What the f..."

Before Alonna could finish speaking she was tossed into a wall. She lifted her head up and gave Wes a startled and somewhat puzzled glance, but when she tried to get up Faith kicked her in the stomach, rolling her over again.

"Aren't you a pretty one?" Faith said, coming closer with the glass shard in her hand. "Wonder how you'll look with your face cut up."

Alonna was cowering, which was so utterly unlike her that Wesley started to worry that perhaps she was seriously wounded. Slayer strength was only meant to deal with demons, and for a human to be thrown across the room like that... He could only hope that she wasn't, and that she'd be able to get out somehow. It was a bit too high to jump out the window, but he thought one could survive such a leap, and it was certainly better than aiming for the door – but please, girl, get up!

Faith leaned down over her victim, and as Alonna quickly moved forward there was a glimmer of something in her hand. And somehow – Wesley couldn't believe it, but miracles were not to be questioned – Faith fell to her knees and then slid to a graceless heap on the floor. He heard a whispered "you bitch" from her, which was quite a textbook examinationple of the pot and the kettle, but he couldn't contemplate that for long, because now Alonna was dragging herself up from the floor and then cutting his ropes with the bloodied knife. "Are you okay? Jesus, Wesley, you look like hell..."

"Where did you get that?" he breathed as soon as she'd gotten the gag off.

"Never go anywhere without it." Her hands were shaking and he could feel the knife nick his skin from time to time, but it was a lot better than the ropes. "I'm surprised you do. Never know when a demon's going to show up at your home, right?"

"She's not a demon."

Alonna's hands stilled on the ropes, and she stared up at him with her eyes round and wide. "What do you mean, not a demon?"

He slowly moved his aching feet away from the stumps of rope and watched Faith's fallen body carefully. Her chest still rose and fell, if slightly, and part of his mind wanted those breaths to stop, but he still had Alonna to think of. She was the one who would have killed a human, and it was very clear from her expression that she wasn't ready for that. Even if he tried lying to her she'd probably guess the truth, and he was much too tired for lies anyway.

"You'd better call an ambulance."

Without a word, she went to fetch his jacket, searching the pockets for his phone. Not until she started dialling the number did she speak again, asking, "For you or for her?"

He could manage without an ambulance, he was sure. Still, if she was calling one anyway... "Both."

"I stabbed a human?" she asked, but he didn't have to answer, thank God, because she flinched in the middle of speaking and then started talking into the phone. "Hi. There's a woman with a stab wound to the chest and... I had to do it. She was torturing him."

She wasn't completely coherent, but managed to get the address out along with a description of his wounds that was much too graphic for his liking. Certainly it couldn't be that bad – after all, he managed to get back on his feet without further aggravating his injured arm.

Torture, Alonna had said. It wasn't a word he wanted to cling to. If he'd heard correctly she had also confessed attempted murder. Did 911 tape their calls? Even if they didn't, a testimony would be bad enough. Keeping Faith alive suddenly became an urgent matter. Alonna could claim self defence. It'd be a rotten mess, but he'd drawn her into it, he had to get her out.

He didn't dare get down on his knees to see to Faith, afraid he'd never be able to get back up, so he just stood there watching, hoping the slayer wouldn't die, but wouldn't regain full consciousness either. Alonna finished the phone call and walked back to him.

"Are you okay?" she asked, putting her hand on his least bruised cheek. He meant to tell her to check on Faith, but something in the gesture gave him pause. Alonna wasn't big on touch, not with anyone, but he'd seen her do exactly this once before, when that prostitute had gotten impregnated with demon spawn. But that girl had been her friend. She didn't even like Wesley.

He fought an impulse to turn away. Whatever had caused her reaction, he was fairly sure it wasn't pity. And whatever it was, it was a moment's comfort, so he let it be.

The hospital was too fucking huge, with too many things for Alonna to watch. On one end was the corridor where they'd wheeled off with the chick she had stabbed, on the other was the room where they'd taken Wesley, and somewhere in between there were three uniformed policemen and a nurse, talking to each other. What they were saying, she didn't know, but they hadn't arrested her yet, and that was a lot better than she would have expected.

"Miss Gunn?"

Boy, was it weird to be called that. She looked up into the troubled face of a middle-aged Hispanic policeman.

"Is she dead?"

"No, she's still in surgery. We have a positive identification, though. Her name's Faith Wilkins – although we have reasons to believe that's an alias – and she's wanted for several cases of assault."

The name meant nothing to her, but the rest did. "She's done this shit before?" That sure as hell helped her case – stabbing a dangerous fugitive was a whole different thing than stabbing a random white woman, whatever the circumstances. Not that either thought was very comforting.

"Not exactly this..." The policeman glanced at the examinationination room down the hall. "I hope."

She thought of what she'd seen in Wesley's apartment, and of the man with the camera who'd gone into the examinationination room before. Photographic evidence wasn't generally something they bothered with for simple assault cases.

Wesley hadn't seemed to be hurt all that bad, considering how strong that girl had been, but Alonna thought of what Faith had threatened, and she thought of listening to those threats over and over... She rubbed her arms that had broken into goose bumps and looked around, hoping to distract herself.

"Gunn!" she said, relieved to see the familiar face among the strangers in the corridor. Her brother steered through the crowd and soon she found herself in a tight embrace.

"Are you okay?" he asked, touching her cheek gently.

"I'm fine. Just bruised."

"And Wes?"

She couldn't meet his worried eyes. What the hell was she supposed to say? "He'll be fine too. They're stitching him up now."

If Gunn noticed the change to future tense, he didn't have time to say so, because the policeman chose to chime in:

"Are you Charles Gunn?"

Alonna stiffened, wondering how he could know that. She sure hadn't told him, and seeing how Wes had clammed up the moment they stepped inside the hospital doors, she very much doubted he had.

Gunn sensed the change and let go of her slowly, watching the policeman. "That's right."

"And is this your address?"

Address? What the hell? Alonna stepped up to see the paper the policeman was holding up just as Gunn closed his fists and asked, "Where did you get that?"

"The perpetrator carried it in her pocket. Any idea why?"

Alonna stared at the list of four addresses. First Wesley's, then their own, then the center's, and at the bottom one she didn't recognise, under the one word "Angel". She wondered if Angel was a person or a business. The address wasn't very fancy.

"In her pocket?" Gunn turned to Alonna, his eyes wide. "Do we know her?"

"I never saw her before in my life." She stared at the addresses as if they could provide the answers. "I think Wes does, though. And he's on top of her... list."

She didn't say "hit list", but that was where her mind went. It troubled her, because even though she could think of many people who might put Gunn on a hit list, very few of them were human, and even fewer might want to have Wesley tortured.

"Do you recognise the other addresses?"

"Yeah, they're... people I know, I guess you could say."

"People you know." The policeman's voice revealed that he had formed himself an opinion, but what sort of opinion she had no idea. Couldn't very well be the truth. "Is it possible she was sent by a rival gang? Something like that?"

Alonna's exasperated laughter bordered on hysteria. Gangs. Jesus Christ. She had nearly forgotten the normal situation where people fought each other instead of teaming up so they wouldn't be snacks for demons and vampires.

"We're not in a gang," Gunn said. His voice clearly said he didn't mean to expand on that half-truth. It was a classic line of defence that he had taught her early on: if you can't tell the truth, don't get involved in any elaborate lies. Just say as little as possible.

But what if that wasn't enough?

"Am I going to be arrested?" she asked, forcing herself to stay calm.

The policeman sighed deeply. "Probably not, if the girl lives. But I still want to know what happened back there and why, so if you want a lawyer, go ahead."

"I don't have a lawyer." The disdain she felt died away as another thought struck. "Gunn? Do you think we could call Anne's lawyers?"

Gunn's head snapped around with a force that shocked her, and he caught her hand. "Don't call them. Get a lawyer if you want, but not one of them. Okay?"

"Okay." There was no mistaking the urgency of the request, but she still had no idea as to why. He'd have a lot of explaining to do once they got out.


	9. Assistance Required

"Do you have anyone to look after you?" the doctor asked. She was an elderly woman who reminded Wesley in an uncomfortable way of his mother, but her accent and general chattiness reduced the effect a little. The photographer and the policemen had left, and now she was free to bandage all the places she had stitched up before.

"I'm fully capable of looking after myself," Wesley said stiffly. A rising suspicion that she might be onto something only added to his stiffness.

"Mmm." The doctor sounded as doubtful as he felt. "You'll have a hell of a time washing yourself if you don't have anyone to help out with the bandages. And that's even assuming that you have everything else figured out."

Wesley looked down on his bandaged chest and arm. He had no idea how many stitches she had put in, but there were more than enough of them. His shirt was lying next to him on the bunk, and he reached out for it, making a deal with himself that if he couldn't manage to put it on, he'd agree to having someone around.

The splinted finger and the sore shoulder were troublesome, but not as bad as he had feared. Doing up the buttons took more concentration than he was used to, but he still had enough left to listen to what the doctor had to say.

"You could ask those two outside. Considering how patiently they've waited for you, I'd say they're no strangers to doing you a favour."

He wondered how it could have escaped her attention that the girl Alonna had stabbed was still in surgery. If he'd been the one in danger of being arrested for manslaughter, he'd wait around the hospital too. Then it struck him that she had said "two". Alonna must have called Gunn. And he was willing to believe that Gunn would be waiting for news about him as well as about Faith, even if Alonna wouldn't be.

But there was no way he'd ever ask Gunn to look after him for a couple of weeks. He'd been pitied enough to last a lifetime, and although Gunn still had an unfortunate tendency in that direction, he wasn't about to add any fuel to the fire. It was a love affair he wanted, not protection.

"I'll get by," he said, doing up the last button.

"It might be a support for you emotionally as well," the doctor pointed out.

"There's nothing wrong with my emotions, thank you."

Her voice softened, which brought chills up his spine. "We do have a trauma support group, if you'd prefer that. And a wonderful team of counsellors..."

"I don't need counselling." He jumped off the trolley bed and gave her a forced smile. "Thank you."

"All right, I can't make you. But I do think you should have someone over. You don't want those wounds to get infected, do you?"

The memory of rotting flesh gave him pause, and at last he nodded. "I'll call someone."

"Who?"

He thought about that, and Angel's name came to mind. The vampire might be half mad, but he could wrap a few bandages. It might even be good for him to help out and leave that apartment for a while.

"A friend named Angel."

He stepped out of the examination room as he said the words, and doing so he saw a leather-clad back down the corridor. As the man it belonged to turned around, Wesley recognized his former colleague Weatherby, who gave him a stare that indicated he had heard every word. Now Wesley knew what Alonna must have felt when she found herself having accidentally confessed attempted murder to a telephone operator. All he could hope was that Weatherby didn't remember Angel – and judging from his expression, that was very unlikely.

Gunn and Alonna rose from their seats by the wall, but he shook his head slightly at them. Before he had spoken to Weatherby, he didn't consider himself done here.

"Hello, Wesley."

"Hello, Weatherby."

The greeting summed up their relationship pretty well, he thought wryly. In theory, the only reason he had gone by his first name among his Watcher colleagues was to distinguish him from his father, but in practice it also served to show him his place at the bottom of the hierarchy. Junior member, no special skills, was to shut up when better people were speaking.

This time, however, he had one advantage: Weatherby's face held a familiar touch of discomfort. He'd never been very good at socializing, Wesley remembered, and not knowing where to look could spoil a conversation even for the most self-assured of people.

"I assume you are here for Faith?" he asked, knowing very well that it was so. The Council might have given up hope about Faith a long time ago, but they'd never cease to be her Watchers as long as she was still alive.

Wesley suddenly wondered how long that would be.

"Yes we are."

The plural caught Wesley's attention, and looking over Weatherby's shoulder he could see two men he recognized as Watchers Smith and Collins, standing some distance away. Collins was staring intently at him while Smith was clearly more of a glancer, looking and looking away. Neither one of them seemed about to come up and say hello. Well, good. One Watcher at a time was really all he felt he could handle right now.

"What do you plan on doing with her?" he asked. There was nothing he could think of that would contain a Slayer against her will, unless they tried killing her or using magic darker than he thought they could access. Right now part of him wanted them to kill her, so he could have this over with and never have to think of her again.

But the one very good reason why that mustn't happen was right in this corridor, and although he couldn't see her from where he was standing he was well aware of her presence.

"I can't tell you that," Weatherby said. "It's classified information… and you're not a Watcher." He sounded vaguely apologetic saying the last part, which gave Wesley some hope that he might be convinced to reveal something.

"I dare say I'm more affected by this than you are."

Weatherby averted his gaze, and Wesley had to hold back a grin. The victory might be small, but it was definite, and many such small victories might get him the information he wanted.

"It wasn't Faith who...?"

The answer to that question should have been obvious, but then anatomy had never been Weatherby's strong suit.

"If it had been, I'd hardly be standing up right now."

"Right."

There was an uncomfortable silence, and Wesley let it last longer than strictly necessary before he asked, "So, what are the plans?"

Weatherby gave a deep sigh. "I can't tell any details, but we'll bring her back to England for rehabilitation."

"Rehabilitation," Wesley said flatly. He wasn't sure if Weatherby was lying or not. Considering what he knew of Watcher procedures when Slayers weren't satisfactory, it sounded like a lie, but the circumstances in this case were quite unusual. Perhaps rehabilitation – whatever meaning people like Weatherby could put into that word – actually struck the Council as the least bothersome option.

"That's right."

And the way Weatherby looked him straight into the eye told him with absolute certainty that it was a lie. He couldn't bring himself to care, but he did look across his shoulder at Alonna. "See that girl over there?"

Weatherby looked in the direction Wesley indicated and asked, "What, the black one?"

There was a hint of appreciation in his voice that surprised Wesley. He'd seen Alonna as a lot of things, mostly a rival or reluctant ally, but until now, he'd never seen her as a girl to find attractive or unattractive.

"That's the one," he said when his surprise had faded. "If it wasn't for her you'd currently be chasing Faith halfway across the country. She also saved my life, which means a lot to me if not to you. So whatever happens, I want her kept out of trouble."

"Who's the guy?"

"That's her brother." Of all the ways to introduce Gunn... "He's to be kept out of trouble too."

Weatherby gave the two of them a long glance and then shrugged. "I'll try."

"No, you will not try." Wesley's voice was cold. He knew Weatherby had the authority to handle this any way he wanted, and he wasn't about to let himself be bullied. "They will be kept safe. That's the only way I'll guarantee my cooperation."

"What makes you think we'll need your cooperation?"

"Oh, I dare say you won't, if all goes well." He was still looking at Gunn and Alonna and could see how they tensed up as they became aware that they were being watched. "But those two belong to a group of vampire hunters. Fantastic allies, really the sort of people you want around. Incredibly loyal, too. If they somehow got under the mistaken impression that you were responsible for their friends getting into trouble..."

"Are you threatening me?"

"Of course not." And in any case it seemed to be working, so that was all right. "You asked what sort of situation might arise that would make my cooperation needed, and I answered. That's all."

Weatherby looked about to choke on his own indignation, but he nodded. "I'll keep them safe."

With that, he strutted off, and Wesley grinned at Gunn and Alonna to indicate that they could come over.

"Could you give me a ride home?" he asked when they did. He was still smiling. At any other time, he would have put talking to Weatherby on the very bottom of his to do list, but right now, it had been just what he needed.

Wesley was waked by a large hand shaking his arm. The touch pulled at his stitches, and he rolled over on his side. Big mistake. He moaned out loud as he was reminded of his cuts and bruises.

The hand instantly disappeared. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault, Angel," Wesley mumbled. Angel sometimes needed to be reminded of that fact, since many of the things he saw these days were his fault.

He sat up and tried rubbing his eyes clear. Gah. Nothing quite like gauze in his eyes to make a morning perfect.

Angel was now standing by the foot of his bed. "She's in the kitchen."

All Wesley's residual sleepiness disappeared. "Faith?" But if Faith were in the kitchen, even Angel would think of better things to do than wait for Wesley to get out of bed. And in any case, Faith was at the hospital. So far Weatherby and his goons had neither killed her nor taken her away, and nobody walked out of the hospital this soon after having her lung punctured. Not even a Slayer.

Angel looked even gloomier than usual. "Buffy."

"Buffy's in the kitchen?" Well, it was better than Faith, although why Angel thought his presence was needed was beyond him. "Does she wish to speak to me?"

"I don't think so. I just... I think she's real, but I can't tell for sure. Is she?"

"I'll go have a look," Wesley said. He wasn't very keen on the idea of getting out of bed, but he owed Angel that much. Because the vampire wanted it so much, Wesley hoped that Buffy was indeed real, even though it would be much easier for him personally if she wasn't.

The bathrobe only covered part of his injuries, and knowing how unintentionally merciless Buffy could be, he raised his chin a little before entering the kitchen.

Even prepared, it was a bit of a shock to see the Slayer sitting in his kitchen. He was proud that his voice revealed no emotion when he said, "Hello, Buffy."

She hurried to rise from her seat. "Wesley."

Considering the disaster that had been his time as her Watcher, it was a remarkably civil greeting. No little quips or eye-rolling. Yet the way she pursed her lips – and he knew it wasn't aimed at him, she'd always used to do that – was enough to make him want to go back to bed again. The last thing he needed was more moody Slayers.

"She's real."

Angel's voice was weak and barely noticeable, but the rest of him wasn't as he pushed past Wesley and caught Buffy in a bear hug. She squirmed a bit in his arms and her lips pursed further, but she didn't pull loose.

"So," Wesley said, "if that's settled perhaps I should leave you alone."

"No, don't," Buffy said, and Angel must have been as surprised as Wesley was, because he frowned at his ex and let his arms fall down.

"I'm sorry," he said, sounding very old and tired all of a sudden. "I forgot. You're not here to..."

"I have someone, remember?" she said, but she let her hand touch his cheek very briefly.

The admission surprised Wesley, although he wasn't sure why it should. It was only natural that Buffy would get a new boyfriend, for her to move on with her life, try to attain some form of normality.

Angel didn't seem surprised, and he handled himself with remarkable dignity. He just nodded briefly and sat down at the table. "So this is about Faith?"

"Yeah," she said, sitting down as well. "I know she's at the hospital, but nobody there will tell me anything. Least of all the so-called FBI agents watching her door." For the first time since she'd asked him to stay, she was looking straight at Wesley. "Strangely familiar, British FBI agents."

It annoyed him to no end. He wasn't a Watcher anymore, and he wasn't willing to play scapegoat for whatever gripe she had with the Council. "If they wouldn't tell you anything at the hospital, how did you find us?"

"Angel's landlord."

Angel nodded upon hearing this and told Wesley, "I gave him the new address when we were there collecting my things."

That meant Wesley had to hurry up with the false address spell he had bought. Even if the people at Wolfram and Hart thought they had frightened him off, they'd hardly object to catching two birds with one stone.

But most of his displeasure was because Buffy had found her way there, and it was really quite unreasonable. As a Slayer, she had every right to be concerned about the Faith situation, and this was without a doubt a good place for it. He sat down, sighing.

"Weatherby told me they're taking her to England... for rehabilitation."

"Rehabilitation?" Buffy made an incredulous grimace. "I wouldn't trust them to rehabilitate a hamster, much less a Slayer."

"I don't think they will," Wesley said simply.

"Of course they won't! They'll just lose her halfways and..." She frowned. "Or do you mean you think they lied to you?"

"I know they lied to me. I just don't know how much."

"They're killing her." Angel's voice was low, and it was a statement, not a question.

"They might," Wesley admitted. "But there's Buffy to consider."

Buffy gave him a sharp glance. "What do you mean?"

"I mean it's not a normal situation to have two Slayers. Common procedures hardly apply."

"And common procedures would be to kill her, is that it?"

"Yes." Her shocked expression told him just how much he'd been affected by his upbringing – to him it seemed obvious and something she should have figured out on her own if she had given it a moment's thought. "A Slayer needs to be able to perform her duties at all times, after all."

"What? No sick leave?"

She was mocking him, but these were serious matters, and he answered as if it had been a serious question.

"Considering Slayer healing, it'd take considerably longer to train someone new, so yes. I suppose a certain sick leave is accounted for."

Her face was pale with rage. "So, basically, what you're saying is that if I got cancer or was maimed..."

She silenced and got some colour back in her face as she realised what she'd said. Suddenly Wesley saw some of what Angel might love in that girl. It had taken her this long to start guarding her words, and that showed a certain self-absorbed innocence that was quite endearing. For a Slayer, it was a rare character trait, and he briefly wondered what she might have been like before her calling, before that innocence was partly destroyed.

"Then they would have had you killed, yes. So perhaps it is fortunate that technically, you have already died."

"How can you just sit there and..." She interrupted herself, turning to Angel. "And you! Don't you have anything to say? Did you know about this?"

"I didn't know." Angel's eyes were very sad. "But it makes sense."

"Nothing about this makes sense."

"It does. Slayers have to slay. Watchers have to watch them..."

"Giles said something similar once," Buffy sighed.

"...vampires have to kill and maim and drink of blood..."

"That doesn't follow from the previous sentence," Buffy said lightly, but there was pain in her face as she took Angel's hand in hers. "If we just go by the name, vampires might as well help and save..." She stroked his hand softly. "Give me a fair fight and I'll take her down, but there's nothing fair about this. I'm not going to let them kill her. And they're not fit to handle her either."

"So what's your suggestion?" Wesley asked. He felt like grabbing Buffy by the shoulders and shaking her, but that sadly wasn't an option. After the frail understanding he'd come to with his former colleague, the last thing he wanted was an impulsive, undisciplined Slayer charging in. Would she even care who got caught in the middle? "Just run inside and snatch her away?"

"I bet I could pull it off," she said, raising her chin.

Oh, God, the foolish girl really meant it. "This isn't Sunnydale. Crimes are actually investigated here." Or rather, they were if Wolfram and Hart didn't get involved – and if they did in this case, it would be on the wrong side.

"Well, they're not gonna catch me. And I wouldn't ask you to go there, if you're too wimpy to even help..."

He interrupted her: "Did it ever occur to you that other people are involved in this?"

"The girl is still crying," Angel said.

At first Wesley wondered if Angel was referring to Alonna or Faith, but then he realised that the vampire's comment most likely didn't have any relevance to the situation. But it gave him pause, and clearly Buffy as well.

"Okay," she said finally. "Who's involved?"

"The girl who stabbed her, for one." Odd that Buffy hadn't figured that out. Did she even realise that Faith had been stabbed twice, or did she think that the other Slayer's current hospitalisation was some sort of relapse from her earlier injury. "The police know she did it." He saw no need to mention that she had accidentally confessed to the 911 telephone operator. "So far they're writing it off as self-defence, but if anything happens, she'll be the primary suspect. I'm not willing to risk that."

"Was it self-defence?"

"In a manner of speaking. She saved my life." It wasn't a subject he liked to dwell on. "She's part of a gang of vampire hunting street kids. They don't need the kind of exposure this could bring them."

Angel gave him a pensive glance that caused his face to heat. The vampire might be confused and half-crazed, but he was evidently still listening to the conversation – and understanding a whole lot more than Wesley would have wished.

"Vampire hunters, huh?" Buffy said. "Well, maybe it'd help if we took Faith from the Watchers when they're already on their way." She grimaced. "Let's just hope Faith will be ill enough not to put up a fight and escape."

"The Watchers' poison takes her power away," said Angel.

Buffy stared at him, and an incredulous smile spread over her face. "The stuff Giles used on me?"

"Good Lord, yes!" said Wesley once he understood what they meant.

"Will they use it?" Buffy asked, turning to him.

He shrugged. "How should I know? But perhaps Giles..."

"I'll call him right away."

She rose from her seat, but halted a moment before reaching the door. Her eyes sought out Angel's.

"We'll talk more later, okay?" she said, face and voice both very soft. Seeing her like this, it was hard to imagine her the forceful fighter he knew her to be. It occurred to him that he'd only ever seen her from her worst sides before.

Gunn glanced from the black shoes on the floor to Wesley's face, seeking an explanation.

"Those are Angel's. He's staying here for a while."

Gunn frowned at that. He didn't like the thought of Wesley's apartment being occupied by anyone else, and especially not that vampire. "Why?"

A slight blush tinged Wesley's face. "To help out."

Gunn looked down for a moment. He still didn't know exactly what that girl had done to Wesley, and much less why. Alonna wouldn't tell him a damn thing, and that alone told him that it had to be pretty bad. It confused and sickened him. He couldn't think of anything about Wesley – Wesley, for fuck's sake – that might make some girl want to beat him up.

It hurt to see those bruises and bandages, to know that he hadn't been able to do a damn thing to prevent Wesley from being injured. But it hurt more to know that now that he could help, Wesley wouldn't let him.

"I could have done that," he said, looking up again.

"I know." Wesley's face was impossible to read. "But I wanted Angel to do it."

Gunn nearly lost his breath at this bold admission. Fuck, what was he supposed to say to that? "Maybe I should just leave, then?"

He grabbed his jacket and as he did so noticed for the first time the tan suede jacket hanging next to it. That definitely wasn't the vampire's, unless he liked to wear women's clothes half his size. "Who else is here?"

"What? There's no one else... ah. That's Buffy's. She must have forgotten it here."

"Buffy? Who's Buffy, a hooker?"

"Of course not. She's the Slayer." Wesley didn't seem as perturbed by the idea that he could be entertaining hookers as Gunn would have expected. That was part of the reason he'd done it, to embarrass Wesley and make him forget about all the other stuff.

That and the fact that "Buffy" really did sound like a hooker – or in any case, didn't sound like anything potentially harmful, which "Slayer" without a doubt did.

"What's a Slayer?"

Wesley didn't answer at first, and there was a moment when Gunn thought he'd refuse to answer, but finally he said, "A vampire slayer. There's a girl chosen in every generation..." He waved away the rest of the explanation. "Never mind."

Gunn stared at the jacket. No way was it more than a size six. "She's here to kill the vamp?"

For some reason, that caused Wesley's mouth to twist. The idea of a girl that size killing any vampire at all was dumb, of course, but Gunn had a feeling that wasn't what that half-smile was all about.

"Not at all. She's here because of Faith."

Gunn blinked – whose faith? – but then he remembered. That was her name. "The girl who..."

"Yeah." Wesley reached out for the jacket and then let his hand fall down, instead retreating further into the apartment. "Do you want to... stay... for a while?" he asked awkwardly.

The polite phrase revealed no emotions, but Gunn knew better than to think there was nothing more to it. And for once his nervousness at what Wes probably meant was overshadowed by irritated confusion: why the fuck would Wes want to be suggesting things when it wasn't five minutes since he said he'd rather have an undead creature in the house than him?

"Yeah," he said, because it was all he could say.

It was a weird feeling, to go into Wesley's bedroom and know that whatever happened in there, it was likely to be something he hadn't tried before. The whole vampire in the kitchen situation didn't exactly calm him down either.

It had been years since he was last this nervous in someone's bedroom, and even then he'd always known that nothing could happen unless he wanted it to. Not that he didn't trust Wes or actually thought Wes was strong enough to overpower him, but just having to come to that conclusion was much too strange.

"Come on in," Wesley said. "And do sit down, you're making me nervous."

"Glad to hear I'm not the only one," Gunn muttered.

But he sat down, only to scoot closer to Wes and kiss him. If he made sure to initiate every move, he couldn't ever be taken by surprise.

Wesley moaned. And it wasn't an "oh, yes, that's amazing!" moan. It was an "ow, that hurts" moan. Gunn immediately pulled away.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm just bruised, that's all."

That wasn't all, judging from what he could see of Wesley's injuries, and beyond that, what he had seen in his sister's face when he tried to pry information from her.

"Maybe we shouldn't..."

Wesley rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous," he said, leaning in for another kiss.

He did no more moaning, but Gunn could feel the little flinches when he accidentally touched a sore spot. Though he was sure Wesley would let him know if anything was too painful, he still felt a bit guilty. That he was there at all with sex on his mind at a time like this, after dancing around the issue at so many better times. That he hadn't been there to help, and Alonna had to be the one to do so. And maybe most of all that he still wasn't helping, because Wes had asked that goddamned vampire instead.

Since he didn't want to think of that, he went on with the kissing, unbuttoning Wesley's shirt so he could trail his way down there. It was hard to avoid the cuts and bruises, and he could tell from each of Wesley's breaths if he had failed or not. Funny, he'd been playing Indiana Jones a lot as a kid, but this was a scene he'd never have expected to mimic – especially not as Marion.

There was a definite limit of things he could do with Wesley hurting like this. Gunn kept kissing his way down and unzipped Wesley's pants, but then he paused. Theoretically he knew just how to continue – he'd seen several girls do it, not to mention Wesley just a few days ago – but how the hell did you do it? Wesley didn't look any different from other guys he'd seen naked, and yet he panicked at the thought of taking that dick into his mouth. It wasn't like the guy was a fucking hamburger; you couldn't chew him if the bite was too big.

A hand stroked his scalp softly. "Just do what you want to do."

He let his hand touch the tip of Wesley's dick. It felt perfectly normal, with a hard-on not unlike what he faced every morning. It felt a lot different, of course, touching someone else's. It was a pretty awesome sensation, though, seeing Wesley close his eyes and take a deep breath that had nothing to do with pain and everything with delight.

He continued moving his hand, leaving his mouth free to kiss Wesley's chest. Now he was getting hard too, and he was relieved when Wesley started tugging at his pants.

"Watch the bandage," he warned.

"I'll get a new one."

And maybe he should argue that, but he didn't feel like it, not with Wesley's head bowed down over his own and the two of them working their hands in rhythm until it was very hard to tell his own hand from Wesley's. Compared to this, doing girls was like going in blind, never knowing what would make them feel good until afterwards.

Beyond that, this just felt right in a way he couldn't explain even to himself. It wasn't that he cared more for Wes than any of the others. Some of them had meant a lot to him.

Whatever the reason, he liked the result. He leaned his face upwards, catching Wesley's mouth with his own. Though their hands were working softly, Wesley was surprisingly rough meeting the kiss, and Gunn followed his lead.

Someone knocked on the front door.

Wesley pulled back and gave a doubtful glance in the direction of the bedroom door, but Gunn reached out for him again.

"Fuck 'em."

Wesley smiled a little, which caused Gunn to continue, "And spare me any lame-ass jokes, Pryce," before he caught that teasing mouth again.

He could hear Wes mumble, "Oh, well, I suppose Angel can handle it," but didn't reply. What was it about that crazy bloodsucker that made Wesley trust him so much? Yeah, okay, he grasped the concept of a soul, not evil, all of that, but hey, he wasn't evil either. He also had the advantage of a pulse and his full marbles, so he really didn't get what made the vampire a better choice for help.

But he wasn't about to let that bother him. Not now.

Wesley had expected Buffy to return. He hadn't expected her to bring Giles. He wasn't sure why the presence of his former colleague should bother him so much, but the look of shock and pity he was given as he entered the living room was somehow worse than the many similar looks he received daily.

It almost made him wish that Buffy would say something unsuitable. She looked very much about to, and he knew that she, Angel and Giles all had grasped at least some of what had been going on in the other room, even though both he and Gunn had been fairly quiet. If she brought that up, it would be awkward, naturally, but it wouldn't make him feel so small.

Then again, Gunn would probably feel very different about such matters becoming topic of conversation.

He'd have to introduce Gunn somehow. Part of him rather hoped Angel would do it, but of course that was a ludicrous idea. He just wasn't sure what to say. "Friend" felt wrong after what had just happened – particularly since they knew about it. "Boyfriend", on the other hand, was out of the question. So when he opened his mouth, what he found himself saying was:

"Did you find the drug?"

Everyone was already looking at him, but at his casual question there was a vague shift in those looks that indicated they were turning into stares.

"Uh... yeah," Buffy said. "Giles still had the recipe."

"The formula," Giles mumbled, and he was quite right. 'Recipe' just didn't sound dignified. Words were important.

And just then, Wesley found the right word after all.

"This is Charles Gunn, my partner," he said. "Gunn, these two are Buffy Summers and Rupert Giles."

"Nice to meet you."

Wesley watched Gunn watching the newcomers, and he could see a slight wrinkle between Gunn's eyebrows that implied he still hadn't quite grasped the concept of a Slayer. Wesley found it rather amusing, and in any case it was a break from everyone looking at him.

But Gunn's words hung unanswered in the air for so long Wesley started to wonder if he was the one who'd have to initiate every brief conversation, and if so, what would happen if he didn't. Would they just stand there silently the whole night?

At long last, Giles was the one to break the silence.

"I have some good friends at a coven in England. That's where we will be taking Faith."

Wesley nodded. He had tried to figure out what to do with Faith, since he very much doubted that drugs could hold her down for very long, but no solution had come to mind. A coven sounded reassuring, and an English coven even more so. He couldn't think of a better place for Faith to be than in the last country on earth he intended to return to.

Gunn reacted very differently. "A coven? With... what, witches? Wouldn't a prison be better?"

"I don't think there's a prison that will hold her," Buffy said, and for the first time since Angel had hugged her in the kitchen, her expression softened a little. It was immensely troublesome to see, and Wesley scowled, but he wasn't really surprised. Buffy's attitude towards Faith had never been particularly logical.

"But you two would?" Gunn's disdain came with a half grin and a friendly voice, but that didn't make it any less obvious.

The softness in Buffy's expression disappeared. "For the time we need, yeah! But if you'd like to come with... make sure we're doing things right... you're very welcome to do so."

Wesley stiffened, hoping Gunn wouldn't take the offer. It had never occurred to him that Buffy would want their help on that part of the plan, although it surely would be just as tricky to get Faith out of the country as out of the hospital. And Gunn had practically challenged her.

"To England?" Gunn asked, a disbelieving wrinkle forming on his upper lip.

"That's the place."

"The more people the better, obviously," Giles said rather hurriedly while Buffy was still speaking.

He was trying to smooth things over, but by doing so he'd suddenly included Wesley in the invitation.

"I can't go, I'm afraid," he said, glad to have a good excuse. "My green card has expired. If I left, I wouldn't be able to come back."

"And I don't even have a passport," Gunn said, frowning.

"Neither does Faith," Buffy pointed out. "We're getting her a fake - I'm sure we could get more."

Giles was ignoring those comments, looking steadily at Wesley, but the gaze was different from before and somewhat easier to take. "Expired? How could it have expired already?"

"Long story." He suspected Giles thought the Council was responsible, but didn't bother to explain.

"Well, as Buffy said, we could get you a fake passport..."

"I'd really rather not." He'd said that a bit too quickly, but it was too late to remedy that now. "Anyway, we do need people here too, in order to delay Weatherby and the others. Unless you have a plan for that?"

Giles frowned slightly. "Not really, no. Having a second team here might be a good idea. We could always ask our friends in Sunnydale to help out."

Oh, wonderful. All he needed was more of Buffy's friends hanging around.

"What about you?" Buffy was still talking to Gunn, her arms crossed over her chest. "Are you staying here or do you want that false passport?"

His eyes narrowed. Oh, Lord, he was taking the bait.

"Maybe I do."

Damn him.

"Good!" Giles said with unnecessary enthusiasm, probably in another attempt of damage control. Wesley could understand his dilemma, but wanted to hit him over the head anyway. "Angel? Do you want to go as well?"

Buffy gave him a glance and shook her head slightly, but Angel answered with perfect clarity, "Yeah... I think I'd better not. I mean, there's the vampire thing and -" he grimaced "-everything else, but I did also promise Wesley to stick around for a while."

Wesley smiled, touched by the vampire's concern, but Gunn finally took his eyes off Buffy, his jaw set tighter than before as he looked at Angel.

"Maybe I should be in the home team after all," he said. "Make sure things work out all right. And besides, there's the agency to think of."

He wasn't actually thinking of the agency, Wesley knew, it was just an excuse. And he didn't mind that excuse, knew far too well that sometimes honesty wasn't an option. That part was all right, it wasn't what made his throat thicken.

But the reason Gunn spoke of staying was because he couldn't stand Angel, and Wesley didn't know what to do about that. It was hardly surprising; Gunn was predisposed to hating vampires. At least he'd stopped calling Angel "it", and Wesley had started hoping Gunn might actually make an exception from his ethical stanza of "vampires are bad". But judging from his current behaviour that wasn't going to happen.

He wondered what Gunn would do if he found out Buffy's relation to Angel. Vomit, probably. Be relieved, possibly. The thought of jealousy, no matter how poorly justified, being behind Gunn's reactions was at least some sort of comfort. But also the last thing he needed right now.

"Quite," he said, trying to clear his thoughts. If Buffy and Giles took Faith to an English coven, that took care of part of the problem. If the rest of them efficiently delayed the Watchers in some yet to be discovered way, that took care of another part. But that didn't mean the problem was solved. "What about Alonna?"

Gunn's head whipped around. "What about her?"

His voice was harsh and hostile, clearly showing his worry. Fabulous. Now Wesley was the one to feel jealous. What a strange dance this was.

"Weatherby promised to make sure she was safe." He turned his eyes to Buffy. "Even if we do take Faith after they have left the hospital, she's still at risk. Perhaps she should be the one to come with you – it'd certainly keep her out of sight." Alonna could never afford a trip to England on her own, and the police would know that.

"You want her to go to England?" Gunn's expression would have been funny, except it wasn't.

"It's an option, at least."

"I don't know..." That was Buffy, pursing her lips a little. "We could get her the passport and tickets, sure, but can she hold her own? Otherwise it'd be safer to keep her here."

That caused Gunn to flare up. "Were you the one to take that Faith girl down or was she? Huh?"

Buffy's mouth opened in surprise, but she quickly closed it instead and nodded. "Fine. She can come with us."

"If we can arrange it," Giles pointed out.

"And if she wants to," Wesley said. He knew what it was like to travel half across the world and suspected it would be an even stranger notion to Alonna, who most likely had never been abroad and never thought to.

"And if she wants to. Of course."

"So, you're sending my baby sister to England, huh?"

They were walking down the pavement outside Wesley's house, which hardly seemed like a suitable place for a quarrel. Wesley had to wonder why Gunn chose now to bring this up, instead of inside the apartment, sometime in the past quarter of an hour.

"I'm not sending her anywhere. It's up to her. She's fully capable of making her own decisions."

"But you'd be glad to get rid of her."

Wesley didn't answer, because he wasn't quite sure what the answer was. It wasn't "of course not" as it should have been, but it wasn't "yes" either – not anymore.

They walked in silence until they reached a public bulletin board. Wesley put down his bag and pulled out a poster, which Gunn thumbtacked to the board.

"Why'd you rather have that vampire around than me?"

Ah, so that was why they couldn't talk inside. Perhaps it was to be seen as an improvement that Gunn didn't want to discuss Angel around Angel, but right now, Wesley couldn't muster any enthusiasm for that progress.

"I... there are many reasons," he said, trying to shape those reasons into understandable words. "Angel knows Faith. Her history, what she's capable off. And apart from that, he knows what's it's like to be..." Wesley thought of what Faith had done, thought of the word Amnesty International would use for it, and silenced for a second. "I needed someone who could understand."

"Oh, yeah, the deep understanding of a crazy vampire," Gunn said bitterly. He shoved the pack of thumbtacks into his pocket and his hands in after them, before he started walking down the street again. "How the fuck do you expect me to understand if you don't tell me anything?"

Wesley fell into step. "Some things can't be told."

"You could try. " Gunn was now walking backwards, his eyes riveted on Wesley. "Fuck it, Wes, maybe I don't understand, but you haven't even given me a chance in that department, have you? I would have helped, you got to know that, so why couldn't you ask me?"

"Because I still have some dignity left!" Wesley hadn't meant it to come out quite so loud – there were a few people across the street, and he could see them staring. Well, nothing new there. "I won't be your charity case! This is hard enough without you there to despise me."

Gunn's mouth opened, and there was a pause while his mouth worked silently before he managed to splutter, "What's going on in your head, English? Since when do I despise you?"

Wesley hurried his steps, trying to avoid that gaze. "Fine. Pick your word. Condescension. Superiority. Pity. What's the difference?"

"So you're saying that if I feel sorry for you, it's gotta be because I despise you?"

He shook his head slowly. "No. But it is."

"That is such a load of bullshit!" Gunn exploded. "Do you think I'd be here if I despised you? I care about you. I'm allowed to do that. It's not a fucking insult, so why do you treat it like one? Do you think I'm lying to you? That I'd rather be with someone else?"

"That's not the point!" Wesley dropped the bag and stopped in his tracks. "This isn't about us! It's about me, and if I have to ask for help I want it from someone who's been there, and you haven't. It's all about strength to you. You've never found a battle you couldn't win, and you've never woken up to a world that wasn't made for you..."

"One more word and I'll swear to God I'll punch you," Gunn said, stepping closer. He'd taken his hands out of his pockets and closed them into fists. "You don't know shit about what I have or haven't. The world is made for me, is it? I'll think about that, the next time I go into a Seven-Eleven on a late Saturday night and the clerk starts looking for the alarm button."

Wesley's anger faded a little. He hadn't thought of that before, but Gunn had a point. "Sorry. I didn't mean to imply..." His voice trailed off.

"I know you didn't," Gunn said, letting his shoulders sink down. "It's just, sometimes you're so... What is it you want me to do? Find some psycho bitch to beat me up? A vampire to turn me so I can go broody in the night like your souled fangboy up there? Cut off my arm?" He gave a breathy half-laugher. "Not gonna happen, Wes. No more than you can get rid of that white face and fancy upbringing of yours. You can't wait for us to stop being different. We are, and we got to be able to work with that."

Wesley nodded silently, blinking a couple of times to clear his eyes. Looking up again, he said as calmly as he could, "Gunn, I am not ready to have you help me."

"Yeah, I know," Gunn said, his voice barely audible. He glanced down the now empty street and then in the other direction as well, before he moved closer still, brushing Wesley's lips with his own while his hand stroked the back of Wesley's head. When he pulled away again, his eyes were shining with unshed tears.

"Come on, English," he said, picking up the bag of posters. "We've got plenty of these to put up yet."


	10. Leaving

Alonna watched the other girl closely. Skinny blond cheerleader type of girl, but those tiny little arms still had some muscle, and she hadn't forgotten how a girl not much bigger than this one had tossed her around as though she weighed nothing. 'Slayers', both of them, apparently. And the older guy was a 'watcher', which Wesley had been too. He reminded her a bit of what Wesley had looked like the first time she'd seen him

Gunn was smirking as if he thought it was some kind of joke, but both Wesley and old-guy-Wesley were looking quite serious.

"A Slayer, huh?" she said, trying the new word in her mouth. "And that other girl too?"

"That's right."

"And you have super powers?" She couldn't help the amused scepticism that showed through in her voice.

"In a way, yes."

"Okay." Alonna picked up a stake from the inventory and tossed it to the girl. "I'm a vampire about to attack. Stake me."

Wesley gave a discreet cough. "You might want to choose a blunter weapon."

That seemed a bit unnecessary – Alonna had never heard of anyone actually managing to kill a human with a stake – but the Buffy girl flipped the stake over in her hand so she was aiming with the blunt end.

"Okay," she said, tilting her blond head to the side. "Attack me."

So Alonna did, though with some caution since she wasn't eager to be thrown into a wall again. Instead she ended up flat on her back with a little blonde girl sitting on her chest. Whoah. That Buffy girl was way stronger than she looked. Like she was used to, she faked weakness for a moment, and when she felt the other girl's grip relax a bit, she flipped her legs over her head. She had counted on Buffy falling over, but instead found the little blonde bouncing back up on her feet and attacking. Alonna had to roll over quickly to avoid being "staked". She managed to get back onto her feet and even get a few punches in, but soon she was flat on her back again and Buffy's stake pounded her in the chest.

"You're dead."

"I guess I am." As soon as Buffy had released her grip, Alonna sat up, dismayed and embarrassed to have been "killed" so fast in front of the others. "Damn."

"You're good, though."

She gave a half-hearted laugh. "Right. You beat me."

"But it took me a full minute."

Alonna glanced up sharply, but it was clear the other girl wasn't joking and actually did think that a minute of fighting was a job well done. The English guys apparently agreed, because they seemed neither surprised nor about to start laughing - while Gunn, bless him, looked like his jaw was going to fall off entirely.

"Catching flies?" Alonna asked, standing up and brushing the dirt off her clothes.

Gunn was clearly still too shocked to answer or even close his mouth, but Buffy snickered, and even old-guy-Wesley smiled a little. Giles, that was his name, and he looked a lot less stuffy when he was smiling.

"So, are you coming to England with us?" Buffy asked.

It was such a weird question, had been even the first time they asked. What was England anyway? A faraway country with a lot of people like Wesley and this Giles guy who all had tea in the afternoon and talked like a bunch of snobs. She'd never even been to Mexico.

And now the question struck her as even weirder. "Why? I didn't even last a minute against you, and you said she has the same powers."

"You did last a minute, and she won't have those powers when we take her. Giles has a drug that'll make sure of that." Buffy glanced at Giles, and some unspoken agreement passed between them. "Actually, we wanted them too," she said, nodding at Gunn and Wesley, "but they wouldn't come. And you might need to get out of here for a while."

Buffy's voice was very level saying that, and Alonna was entirely grateful. Need to get away from possible police interrogations, was what that meant, and it was a pretty unnerving thought. She had tried to kill a human, and even though she was getting increasingly convinced that she couldn't have acted any other way, it still wasn't the same as killing a demon. She'd already had to lie to two police officers and a social worker.

"Yeah, I appreciate it," she said, and if her short tone belied her words, that wasn't her fault. She tried to tell herself that it'd just be for a little while. It could be exciting, almost like a vacation.

A vacation spent transporting a fugitive, torture-loving chick half around the world. Right. She bit her lip.

"So, when are we leaving?"

"That depends on when Weatherby and his thugs make their move," Giles chimed in. His face was sympathetic, and she almost wished it hadn't been, because she was starting to feel miserable. "It probably won't be for a few days yet, but we should keep guard at the hospital."

"Well, we've got enough people for that, at least."

"Yeah, we thought of making a roster," Gunn said, sounding just a little sarcastic at his own choice of words. "If we have just one or two guys at a time, chances are the Brits won't even know they're being watched."

She nodded. "Sounds like a good idea."

He held her gaze and said in a low voice, "Take care, little sister."

Oh God, now he called her 'little sister'. Why did everyone have to be nice to her? She glanced at Wesley, hoping that he at least would give her one of those cold stares she'd come to expect from him. But no, his face was serious, but far from unkind.

Much more of this, and she'd start bawling.

"Okay, people," Gunn said, trying to remember all the details of the plan as he ran it over with the gang. "Wesley and Giles know these guys, so they'll take turn at the hospital. They're our insiders, so to speak. Everyone else will take shifts waiting outside. Three or four people maximum, we don't want to attract any unnecessary attention. This was, the rest of you can still chase some vamps between sleeping and duty. When these 'Watchers' make their move, those of you who are on watch are to call the rest up – make sure you have a cell phone in each group out there. No matter what you're doing you're coming over as soon as you get the call. The people on shift will also be the ones to take over the Watchers' car or whatever it is they're driving. They're bound to leave someone there, but they won't be expecting interference, so it should be a walkover. But don't take that for granted – they're professionals just like us. And remember, these are humans we're fighting. Which means no killing them. If it's your life or theirs, do what you must, but it'll be murder."

He watched the guys to see their reactions to what he was telling them. They didn't seem very enthusiastic, but then, it would have been pretty creepy if they had been.

"Why are we doing this again?" Chain asked.

Gunn had never been the kind of leader to go 'because I said so', but right then he very much felt like it. He wasn't sure why he was doing this, except that if Wesley wanted it after what that girl had done to him, it had to be the right thing somehow.

"I have worked with these people before," said a voice behind him, and he didn't have to turn to know it was that guy Giles, but he did anyway. "I have no reason to believe them anything but killers. Unfortunately, their activities can't exactly be taken to the police."

"Yeah, they're bad. I get it," Chain replied. "But that girl's not an innocent either, is she? You tried to kill her."

That last part was aimed at Alonna, who had been standing silently by Gunn's side. There was a pause before her answer, and what she finally said was a low, "Yes, I did."

Gunn remembered what she'd looked like that day in the hospital corridor, but that was for her to share if she wanted to and none of his damn business.

"She's not an innocent."

Giles again, and for a moment Gunn thought he meant Alonna. But no, he was speaking of that Faith girl, of course.

"What she is, is a young woman who has done some very bad things and is trying to avoid paying for them by going on the way she started. As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, as they say." A shadow of a smile came over his lips. "I recognise the way of thinking, I guess you could say. That's why I'm doing this. What your reasons may be is up for you to decide."

He wasn't the sort of man the guys would usually listen to, but there was something in his voice that raised Gunn's hair, and he could tell the others were reacting the same way. Giles wasn't bullshitting them – he did know the way of thinking that would make a chick turn into a killer, and probably better than they did. What the hell kind of people did Wesley use to hang with?

The guys stared at Giles for a quiet moment, and then Jamie's head turned to Alonna. He didn't say anything, but his expression clearly asked her opinion. Poe and Bobby soon caught on and glanced in her direction as well.

She looked down, and then she nodded. "Just do it."

They didn't ask any more questions after that, nor did they look to Gunn. What had just happened was so unusual that it took Gunn a while to realise that he'd been outranked – by a stuffy old Brit and his own sister.

Gunn lay down on the narrow bed. It was eleven AM, but he hadn't slept well, and just lying down was a relief.

"You look distracted," Wesley said, lying next to him. It forced Gunn to lie with his back against the cold wall, but that was okay.

"Nah, not distracted." He pulled Wesley closer still. "Everything but distracted. That's the problem. I just keep thinking 'what if something goes wrong?' And there ain't nothing can distract me from that thought."

"I could distract you," Wesley offered, voice level as he moved his hand down to Gunn's groin.

Gunn caught the hand on its way and shook his head. "When this is over, Wes, you can distract me all you want. Not now. Not when they can call us up any minute."

Wesley said nothing, only put his arm around Gunn's waist. In the living room, Angel turned on the television, but in here the only sound was of their breathing slowly setting into rhythm. "You were never thís nervous before."

Gunn shrugged. "I never fought humans before."

Silence again, and Gunn tightened his embrace, as if that would stop his thoughts from racing. "We'll have to be a lot more careful," he said. "But I guess… in all other ways it's the same as always."

"Is it?"

That should have been a simple question. It sure sounded like one.

"We can't let ourselves be seen," Gunn continued, trying to reason his way out of his discomfort. "And we can't kill anyone, of course. Or let them kill us."

"That should be a given."

"Not really." He couldn't quite explain the difference, and had to search for words. "On the other missions, I know I'm right. I know they're the bad guys, and if I die at least I'm taking some with me. But this..." He realised that the embrace had turned into a hard grip, and although Wesley hadn't said a word of complaint, he let go. "She wanted to kill us. And she hurt you... and we're saving her. I think we're doing the right thing – but I don't know it."

Wesley didn't answer, damn him, but lying this close Gunn could feel the shivers in his body and knew that the reason for Wesley's silence was that he didn't have the answers either.

Everything Gunn had said was true, but it wasn't enough. And he found himself saying, "Or maybe I just don't want to die."

A tiny smile showed on Wesley's face. "Nobody does."

"No, that's not what I mean. I always know I can die, and obviously I don't want that, but at the same time that's the point, knowing that is what makes it worthwhile. But now... now I'm just scared. And that's no way to do it, being scared all the time."

For a brief moment, it looked like Wesley was about to nod in agreement, but instead he said, "I am. All the time. Every second out there, I think I'm going to die, and I hate it."

Gunn had figured that much, but he still had a hard time wrapping his mind around it. "How do you do it, then? How can you go out there and be scared?"

Wesley averted his eyes for a moment, but Gunn didn't get the impression that it was to avoid the question. Just to think.

"I don't really think I have a choice."

"You had a choice not to piss off the lawyers," Gunn pointed out. He felt Wesley go tense and hurried to add, "Hey, hey, I'm not saying you did wrong. Just that you made a choice."

"I suppose I did." Wesley smiled a little and shook his head, soon growing serious again. "If you're not sure, perhaps you shouldn't do it."

"Who's paying for Alonna's ticket?" It sounded like a change of topic, but it wasn't really, and in any case it was the first thing that came to Gunn's mind.

There was no sign that Wesley was surprised by the question, though he seemed a bit reluctant to answer.

"Giles is paying half, and I'm paying the other half."

"Crazy bastard," Gunn said softly, squeezing Wesley's hand. He knew Wesley couldn't afford half a plane ticket to England and make sure to eat well for the rest of the month. Figured he'd go along with it anyway – probably insisted on paying that half. "Can he spare that kind of money?"

A frown formed on Wesley's brow. "He said so, but I don't know... The council fired him last year, and then we destroyed the high school, which pretty efficiently ruined his day job. I'm not sure he has any employment at all right now. Though I didn't want to ask."

"No, you just offered him several hundred bucks instead." Gunn had to laugh. "You're both crazy bastards. And you're doing it for my baby sis. How could I not help?"

Wesley's frown deepened. "I meant to keep her out of this."

"Didn't quite work out that way." Gunn tried to keep his voice light. "Anyway, Alonna's never needed to be kept out of anything. She'll be okay."

"Right," Wesley agreed, kissing him.

"And when this is all over, we'll get distracted." He let his lips touch Wesley's ear as he whispered, "All you want."

Alonna was a fast-moving girl. She had to be, or she'd be dead. When the phone rang, she jumped out of the cot she'd made for herself on the tin roof and pulled on her jacket. It was an hour or so before dawn, a time when she was usually turning in, but Buffy hadn't wanted to go back to the headquarters after their stakeout, and so they settled for a semi-stakeout from a nearby rooftop. Her body was aching from the uncomfortable position she'd been sleeping in, but she was used to discomfort and didn't let it slow her down. But by the time she reached the fire escape, the Slayer was already waiting to go, putting the cell phone back in her pocket.

Alonna stared at her. "Haven't you been sleeping at all?"

"Sure I have," Buffy said, heading down the fire escape. "You're just a little bit more Rip van Winkle than I am."

Alonna hardly saw herself as very like Rip van Winkle, but she didn't bother to argue. "So what did they say?"

"Just that it's starting and that they'll call back when they've taken over the Watchers' truck."

Or when they'd failed to. No reason to bring that up, though. They both knew it was a possibility. Alonna hurried her steps, trying to follow Buffy's as they both ran from the stakeout towards the hospital.

Eventually, they slowed their steps nearly to normal pace so they wouldn't attract too much attention. Alonna's eyes darted from exit to exit, although she wasn't quite sure what she was looking for. She'd only seen those English kidnappers once, and she wasn't sure she'd recognize them. Certainly she wouldn't if they were dressed in white coats or something.

But it turned out to be quite a lot easier than she thought, because the first familiar figure she saw stepping out of the hospital was Wesley. She stopped short and grabbed Buffy's arm. The men that walked outside with Wesley weren't wearing white coats and she did recognize them rather, but her attention was on the wheelchair being pushed by one of them and the sickly-looking girl sitting there in a hospital gown. She looked much too weak to kill anyone, and Alonna wondered if she was doped up already.

"Now, how did he get here this fast?" Buffy muttered.

"He's taking shifts," Alonna said. She had thought Buffy knew that. "Just like your Giles guy."

"I'd rather have Giles," Buffy muttered. "He can hold his own."

Alonna frowned, but didn't have time to think of an answer before Buffy spoke again:

"Where is that truck?" She brought the cell phone out of her pocket and started searching for a phone number. "They were supposed to call when they'd taken it."

"Don't," Alonna said. "They might be in the middle of a fight or something."

Buffy paused for a second, letting her glance touch the Brits, who had yet to discover them. Then she smiled. "I'm thinking not, or the truck would still be in place."

She had a point. The main reason they hadn't been discovered yet was that the Brits were searching all over for something that had to be their truck. Wesley was the only one to pay any attention to people around him, and Alonna caught a glance.

He was on the other side of a vast parking lot and didn't show too much of a reaction either - good thing too, or the others might have wondered what was up - but she could see that he had discovered them. She made a very visible shrug to show that they didn't have any directions yet. It clearly didn't please him, but he turned away, talking to one of the other men.

Meanwhile, Buffy had gotten someone on the phone. "Where are you and what happened to calling us?" She sighed deeply and a frown formed on her face. "If it isn't one thing it's another. Okay, they're out here now, we'll be over in a few."

She put the phone down and rolled her eyes. "Their battery's out."

"Well, that's hardly their fault," Alonna said, grateful it wasn't something worse. Although she knew it was superstitious of her, she hoped that a small mishap meant nothing big was going to go wrong.

"Checking in advance is usually a good idea."

Maybe Buffy hadn't intended to sound snippy, but Alonna took offence at her tone of voice anyway. "It's not like we normally use cellphones on our patrols. And believe it or not, we get the job done."

Buffy, clearly not listening, gave a little wave to Wesley, who was looking in their direction again although the other two weren't. She held up three fingers and jerked her head to the right, and Wesley nodded, moving along with the others in a manner that didn't make it too clear that he was leading the way. His pals were starting to look edgy, but not very suspicious – yet.

"Three blocks, huh?" Alonna said, starting to walk. She didn't know how long it would take before the Watchers recognized her and Buffy, but she told herself sternly that even if her presence would confuse them, they had no reason to suspect any danger.

Three blocks down, she spotted a big blue truck. It was turned in the other direction, so she couldn't see the driver, but Buffy stopped and Alonna did too.

"Shouldn't we step out of their sight or something?"

"Now, where's the fun in that?" Buffy fiddled with something in her pocket, and Alonna got a glimpse of a syringe as the other girl hid it up her sleeve.

She heard one of the men saying "Buffy Summers?" behind them, and turned around, feeling cold inside.

"And you," the same man said, coming closer. "I recognise you."

Alonna nodded, and her gaze fell on the pale girl sitting in the hospital wheelchair. She looked sickly and weak, so unlike her previous self that Alonna at first wondered if the damn Brits had gotten a double. But the girl met her eyes, scowling.

"You tried to kill me."

"Yeah, and I'll do it again if you give me reason," Alonna replied. "But not right now."

And with that, she took a few quick steps forward and punched the guy next to her in the face. He wavered for a second and she punched him again, but this time he was prepared and caught her hand, twisting her arm. She broke loose, kicking him in the guts while she waited for the pain in her arm to go away.

He was a good fighter, something she hadn't quite expected, but then he had very clearly not expected her to be one either. An even fight like this was definitely different than fighting a vampire, starting with a burning wish to avoid killing – at least on her part.

Buffy was a lot more efficient in taking down her guy, but still preoccupied, while Wesley was checking on the girl. Alonna caught a glimpse of the syringe in his hand and was pretty surprised, since she hadn't seen Buffy give it to him.

A hard punch from the man she was fighting sent her sprawling against the wheelchair. Fuck. Getting a bar of steel into her hip hurt. But that wasn't as problematic as the knife he'd just shaken into his hand. Definitely not trying to avoid killing her.

"Care to step in?" she hissed to Wesley who, bless him, rose from where he was crouching down and swiftly kicked Alonna's opponent so the knife fell to the ground.

The man was so shocked he made no move to pick it up, and Alonna quickly dived for it instead. It wasn't a foldable or she would have stuck it away somewhere, since fighting with a weapon made it harder not to go for the kill. Now she had no choice but to hold on to it.

Buffy and the guy she was fighting both turned their heads in surprise. The guy was the first one to recover and get a punch in, hitting Buffy straight on the nose and efficiently jilting her back to reality.

"Wait for your turn," she said, throwing one back so hard the guy dropped like a sack of beans.

Alonna was still trying to get her guy down, with Wesley's help, and they managed to get him down on the ground and well stuck there. But he held onto consciousness, and juggling the knife and keeping him restrained at once was tricky.

Then Buffy joined them, and with a swift blow, it was over.

"Enjoy the trip to La-La Land, Watcher boy," Buffy said, wiping her hands off each other.

The door to the truck opened and Jamie stuck out his head. "You need a hand?"

"No, it's all right," Alonna called back.

"Wait a minute," Wesley said beside her, rising awkwardly. "I think we do, rather. All three of them are unconscious, and we can hardly stack them in the wheelchair."

Alonna stared at him. "You... want to take them with us?" That hadn't been in the plan, and she didn't like it.

Buffy seemed to agree with her. "Wesley, these two are a little bit too dangerous to keep as house pets."

The corners of Wesley's mouth twisted, but his voice was serious as he explained, "So dump them along with the truck, but don't leave them here. We counted on them making their move at night, which they did. But it's almost dawn, and they're not going to wake up for a while yet. People will come along..." He gave a lopsided shrug.

"Daytime people," Alonna said, understanding what he was getting at. "They'll ask questions. Yeah. You may be right."

"So, do you need a hand?" Jamie asked again, still leaning out of the driver's seat.

Alonna sighed. She really didn't want to share a truck with these guys, unconscious or not. "Sure, come on and load them in."

Gunn sat down on one of Wesley's kitchen chairs, feeling strangely lost. "I missed it. The battle, the whole thing... and now she's gone."

"Yes, thank God," Wesley sighed, and Gunn came close to strangling him before he figured out that they were talking about different things.

"Not Faith. Alonna."

"Oh." Wesley looked down. "I'm sorry."

"S'okay." It made sense that Wesley would be more relieved to get rid of the psycho bitch than worried about Alonna. He hadn't lived with her all his life -

And the simple reality of all his life struck him so hard that he couldn't breathe. Alonna had been there since before he could remember. No one had told him to take care of his little sister, but he'd done it anyway. Some people might have argued the logic of his way to keep her safe, which was bringing her into all the deep vampire lairs for the fight, but she wasn't a hooker or demon food, and that was more than you could say about most chicks in these parts of town.

And now she was headed off to a foreign country with only a perky white girl and a stiff in tweed by her side.

He sighed. "Remember what you said yesterday about distracting me? Now would be a good time."

Wesley looked up, and after a moment gave a melancholic smile. "All right." He leaned across the table and gave Gunn a quick kiss. "We'll need to get Angel out of the bedroom, though."

"Fuck." Gunn hadn't thought of that, and the idea of waking the vampire up to say that they needed the bed for fucking was... no. Just no. "Can't we do it in the living room?" The sofa was soft enough, if a bit small – he'd had sex in a lot more uncomfortable places.

Wesley made a thoughtful grimace. "I don't think I can... but maybe you could."

It took a while for Gunn to get the gist of this; his mind went off on the wrong track and he thought Wesley opted out of any action for the time being. Then he caught up, and was a bit relieved. "You want me to do the fucking." It was a question of agility, really, but it also put him in somewhat familiar territory.

Wesley's expression was so hard to read that Gunn became uncertain again:

"You don't want me to do the fucking?"

"Yes, I do, rather." But Wesley's brow was still furrowed. "I just... well, in all honesty, I've never been shagged by a virgin."

The thought that he might not be up to the task got Gunn defensive. "Who're you calling a virgin?"

Wesley smiled a little, though the smile was wry. "Sorry to have offended you. There's virginity and virginity."

"Women have asses. What's the difference?"

For a moment, Gunn thought he might get an answer, but then Wesley closed his mouth, shrugged, and left the kitchen.

It was supposed to be a distraction, but perhaps neither one of them was distracted enough. They brought the needed items into the living room and started taking off their clothes, but their actions were subdued and matter-of-fact, like they were preparing to wash the dishes rather than get laid. Wesley even folded up his jeans, for fuck's sake.

This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. Gunn pushed Wesley down on the couch and kissed him hard. He'd forgotten about Wesley's splinted finger, but luckily his attack was so sudden that Wesley didn't have time to catch himself and hurt it more, just to hiss, "Take it easy!" and move his arm aside once Gunn was already straddling him.

"Sorry," Gunn said, though he felt anything but repentant. But he did take it a little easier as he proceeded to very slowly take off Wesley's shirt, caressing the skin around wounds that were now unbandaged but still sported the occasional stitches.

And then, sliding Wesley's shirt off his shoulder, he found something odd about one of those wounds. "Holy shit."

"It's over," Wesley said, catching Gunn's mouth and kissing him fiercely.

Gunn broke away from the kiss to take another look. "Jesus Christ, it goes all around your shoulder!"

"It's over," Wesley insisted.

The persistence in his voice gave Gunn the sense to shut up, while still watching the cut. It was just a scratch, not deep enough to leave a scar, but there was nothing random about it. That bitch had been doing it as a game, trying to scare Wesley – and probably suceeding too. He had seen Buffy fight and if Faith was anything like her, the threat would have been real, and Wesley would have known it.

But she was gone now. It was over, and Gunn banished the bitch from his thoughts, instead reaching out for the condom packet lying on the table.

This was a small step for mankind, for sure, and it wasn't exactly a huge leap for Charles Gunn either. In fact, he was surprised at how natural for him it was to lock his legs around Wesley's body and thrust deeply. He had done it before, sure, but Wes wasn't anything like a girl, didn't look like one or feel like one, and sure as hell didn't smell like one.

Or react like one, either. Gunn listened to his accelerating breaths with surprise, although his own were hardly any slower. "You really... like this, don't you?"

"Oh, God, yes," Wesley muttered, arching closer.

"Because when I've done this... with women..."

Wesley gave a half-choked laugh and grasped Gunn's ass, something that got him to cease breathing altogether. "Women are different," he said, and then, "Damn. I can't... I'm still bandaged."

"Never mind, then," Gunn whispered, because what Wesley could and did do was more than enough, his hand teasing its way down Gunn's buttock and thigh as he arched his back as well as he could in their awkward position on the couch.

Gunn gasped, feeling his dick tighten and then go limp.

"Don't stop."

"Can't help it." He pulled out and leaned heavily on his elbows, but he let his mouth keep moving over Wesley's neck and chest, and as soon as his arms stopped shaking he started using his hands on him as well.

He wished he could have gone again, right away. In part because he simply wished it, but in part because he still couldn't forget.

"D'you think they're there yet?" he asked, even though he didn't want to.

"Not for another three hours," Wesley answered, without even moving his hand to look at his watch.

It wasn't over. Not for the people crossing the Atlantic, and not even properly for them, here at home.

Angel could hear the echo of footsteps coming down the hall, and the breathy voice of that girl - what was her name? Mushroom, his mind wanted to tell him, but it couldn't be Mushroom. People weren't called Mushroom.

"He's a bit too old for this place, but no one else will take him. And he's no danger to anyone else. Just to himself."

The door swung open and girl who wasn't Mushroom was standing in the doorway along with a severe man in a suit. The severe man gave Angel a long hard stare that made Angel feel guilty and embarrassed, and so he tried to cover up the pretty picture he had drawn on the bed sheet. It was a picture of a girl's face, he knew, but the blood stains had made it all messy, and he couldn't remember who the girl was.

His own face was messy too, and he guiltily wiped away the blood from his mouth, casting an eye at the corpse weighing down his bed.

"I was so cold," he said to the severe man, trying to explain. "He was warm. I wanted..."

The severe man said nothing, just kept staring. The not-Mushroom girl was shaking her head back and forth, but she didn't say anything either.

Angel knew he was in very deep trouble, and he figured there was only one thing left to do. He rose from the bed, causing the corpse to fall down onto the floor with a thud. It fell face up, and he saw that it was Wesley, eyes frozen in confusion and fear.

"I'm still cold," he told the severe man before going into game face.

But the severe man had a game face too, which confused Angel and caused him to step back. He knew that face. He hadn't looked into a mirror for two hundred years, but he knew it anyway.

"Angelus?"

Angelus grinned, loosening his tie and stepping up for the bite. "How did you think this was going to end?"

Angel cowered, backing away until he fell onto the bed. He could see Wesley's corpse lying on the floor, its throat torn out, and he knew that whatever Angelus would do to him, it would be just punishment.

Something about the corpse was wrong, though, and once he realized what it was he forgot to be afraid.

Two arms. The corpse had two arms, and he knew it shouldn't have.

"You're not real," he told it.

A voice rang out from across the room. "Angel, man, you have to stop doing this."

He looked up. No sign of Angelus or the not-Mushroom girl, just Doyle sitting in the chair by the window.

"You're not real either."

The room was different too, now. This was Wesley's bedroom, and he could hear Wesley rummaging about in the kitchen.

"You have to stop doing this," Doyle repeated. "It's about to get worse. Much worse."

"Worse than this?" Angel didn't know what could be worse than this, but he knew the threat wasn't empty. "You keep telling me to stop, but I don't know how."

"Get out and stay out. It'll get easier with time. I think."

"You think?"

Doyle ran a hand through his hair and gave a joyless, lopsided smile. "I don't have all the answers. I'm just a figment of your imagination, remember? Well, that and a few stray visions. But trust me on this one – if you don't stop it's gonna get bad."

"So how do I..."

"Ask Wesley for help. Now go."

Angel stood up, only to hesitate and sit down again. "But..."

"Jesus, Angel, I'm gonna kick your ass soon. And I love you."

"Don't say that."

"GO!"

And he went.


	11. Revelations

Gunn spotted Wesley and the pet vampire on the sidewalk and slowed the truck to a halt. His first thought was that something was going down, but they were heading back to Wesley's building, so in that case their mission was already accomplished.

He lifted his hand to the horn and then lowered it again, not sure he wanted them to notice him just yet. They looked very at ease, which was rare for both of them. Happy, almost. Well, Wes looked happy. Gunn didn't think "happy" was in the vampire's repertoire.

While he was still watching them, Wesley discovered him, raising a hand in greeting. The gesture told Gunn at least one reason for Wesley's happiness, and he started grinning himself, rolling down the window.

"Hey, man!" he shouted. "Cast's off, huh?"

"Indeed." Wesley was beaming as he headed over to the truck, vampire in tow. "I was going to call you, but I guess now I don't have to."

Gunn stepped down from the truck as Wesley stopped, and he pulled him closer and stuck his hands into Wesley's back pockets. To his surprise, Wes stiffened and tried to squirm out of the embrace.

"What's the matter?" Gunn asked and let go, trying to figure out what he'd done wrong.

"We're in the middle of the street!" Wesley hissed.

Gunn shrugged. "So? There's no one here." His eyes touched the vampire, but Wes had never had any trouble with the vampire seeing them before, so why would he now?

"People might be watching from the windows."

Gunn tried very hard to make any sense of this. "It turned dark an hour ago. They'd have to try really hard to see anything – and I doubt we're that interesting." But the dismay in Wesley's face made him relent. "Whatever. We could go inside."

Wesley smiled. "We could do that." His attention shifted to the vampire. "Angel... are you... do you want to come inside or..."

"I know I said I wanted to take an interest," the vampire replied, "but I think that's overdoing it." He gave a sort of half-smile that looked eerily normal.

Gunn gave him a sharp glance, wondering what had brought this sudden change. "You seem... better."

The half-smile turned into an actual smile. "Thanks. I'm trying to be."

"I don't want to kick you out," Wesley said, which made Gunn very nearly want to kick him, out or otherwise.

"Don't worry about it. I'll go see Kate. If she's still talking to me."

Usually, Gunn wouldn't have waited to ask what the hell was going on, but the vamp was acting more like a person than he had in several weeks, and being rude suddenly became an issue. So it wasn't until the last glimpse of the black coat had disappeared into the shadows that he turned to Wesley and raised his eyebrows. "What was that all about?"

Wesley sighed and lowered his gaze. "He got a message from... I don't know. His mind. The powers. The gist of it all is, he has to get better."

"And he can do that?" Even though no one could be seen anymore, Gunn looked thoughtfully down the street. "Just will himself better?"

"At this stage, I very much doubt it." Wes rubbed his forehead like the frown on it pained him, and Gunn started to regret ever saying anything. He had liked seeing Wes happy. "Still, he made himself worse before by embracing the madness, I don't suppose this could hurt."

"Well, that's encouraging."

"That's life."

Wesley's voice was so harsh that Gunn was at loss what to say or do. They were still standing in the middle of the street, and though he found the distance between him and Wes ridiculous, he wasn't about to try and make it smaller again. Instead, he turned around and locked the truck.

"Are we gonna go inside or not?"

Wesley relaxed his stiff posture a bit. "I guess we are."

Once inside the building, Gunn snuck his hand into Wesley's pocket again, and this time the gesture was rewarded with a smile and a whispered reproach: "Gunn!"

The reproach was less genuine than the smile, and Gunn just grinned back, pinching Wesley a little through the fabric.

"Can't you wait for ten minutes?"

Gunn's grin grew wider. "No."

"Well, at least get my keys while you're at it."

Gunn obediently dug the apartment keys out of Wesley's other back pocket and unlocked the door, stepping inside. He meant to get his hands properly on Wesley as soon as they had entered, but before he'd even had a chance to return the keys, he found himself pushed up against the wall.

"I want to take you right now," Wesley said in a conversational tone.

Gunn laughed and briefly caught Wesley's mouth with his. "Yeah? Bedroom?"

"Mmm. No."

"No?" Gunn's arms locked around Wesley's waist.

"No. Right here, against the wall."

Gunn laughed again. He let go of Wesley and spun around so he stood with both hands against the wall and his legs spread wide. "Like this?"

"You look like you're about to get frisked."

"Yeah?" Gunn grinned over his shoulder at Wes. "Come and frisk me, then."

It was supposed to be a joke to release the tension, an association from the words "against the wall". It was still a joke as Wesley gave a lopsided shrug and stepped closer. But somehow, when that skinny hand landed on Gunn's shoulder, for a brief moment it ceased to be a joke, and his heart sped up.

He sternly told himself that this was Wesley, scrawny, one-armed Brit who might be picking up some battle skills but was still fairly easy to beat in a fight. Wes wasn't anything like a real cop.

The thought eased his discomfort, but didn't stop his heart from racing, because the thought of cop Wesley, in power mode and pushing him up against the wall... God damn it. He drew a shaky breath.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Wesley asked, his hot breath tickling Gunn's ear.

"You got to read me my rights."

"This is getting ridiculous."

"Please." Gunn half turned back and kissed Wesley's jaw. "Read me my rights."

Wesley stood silent for a moment, and then let his hand wander further down Gunn's chest as he said, haltingly, "Uh... You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney..."

"No," Gunn protested. "If you don't use this right, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. Then it's you have the right to an attorney."

"I never expected you of all people to be into cops and robbers."

"That makes two of us." Gunn couldn't explain the sensation, but tried anyway. "I think it's because you're so..."

"Unthreatening?" Wesley suggested with a wry smile.

"Well... yeah. And then sometimes... you're not." That was the closest he could come to telling what he'd seen in Wesley on occasion, during a mission or when something was very very important.

There was a glimmer of understanding in Wesley's eyes, and then Gunn found himself forcibly turned face against the wall again.

"You have the right to remain silent. If you don't use this right, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can't afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you before police questioning."

Gunn let out a long breath and closed his eyes, listening to the steel edge in Wesley's voice. It was faked, but there was a hint of the real thing in it, enough to make this interesting.

Wesley's hand was still moving down in a blend between groping and frisking, and Gunn had just enough time to think "he's gonna..." before the hand closed on his crotch. He groaned.

"What's this?" Wesley asked, still playing up the mock toughness. "It feels like a weapon of some sort."

"I've got a license for that one," Gunn replied with a snort.

"But not to keep it hidden," Wesley said, squeezing gently. "And loaded. Drop your pants."

Gunn's hands felt large and fumbly as he unbuckled his belt and pulled down the zipper.

"Oh, it is loaded," Wesley said with clear delight, stroking a finger up Gunn's dick.

Resting his head against the wall, Gunn replied, "God, I love you."

If there was such a thing as a spell to stop time, it seemed he had just found it. The silence fell heavy upon them, and Gunn backpedalled in his mind. Not the smartest thing to say, maybe, but he couldn't very well take it back - and besides, they were having sex, Wes was holding his balls, it was hardly strange if he got a bit carried away.

Very slowly, Wesley started removing his hand, and Gunn caught it. "Don't."

"I'm going to get some lubrication and a condom."

Okay, so no harm done. But he sure as hell wasn't going to stand around with his pants down his ankles and wait for Wesley to come back. He tried kicking off his shoes, but the pants got in the way and so he had to bend over and unlace them before taking them and the pants off. He tossed the pants over to the couch and kicked the shoes aside – no point in having them get in the way.

"Nice!" a voice said behind him, and as Gunn turned around Wesley handed him the packet and bottle he'd gotten from the bathroom. "Help me out with these, will you?"

Gunn took them and waited for Wesley to finish getting off his own pants. He could probably have tucked the bottle away under his elbow and helped out with that too, but he'd learned to be wary of offering help that hadn't been asked for. Maybe one day he'd be able to tell the difference between things he could offer to do and things he couldn't, but until then it was better to be safe than sorry. Particularly since he'd already made Wes uncomfortable twice and strike three might mean he missed out on the sex. And so he made no move until Wesley had gotten his pants off.

Putting a condom on someone else was decidedly weird, but he was starting to get used to weird. He took his time, partly to hide the fumbling, and partly because he was in no particular hurry. Touching Wes like this was very nice, and he found himself thinking that if the next part was as good as this one, he had a lot to look forward to.

"Gunn? Relax."

He let his shoulders sink down and smiled at Wesley. "Hey, I'm trying."

Wesley pulled him closer and kissed him softly, letting his hand trail down from the back of Gunn's head to his neck, and then to the shoulders. Gunn pressed his shoulder blades hard against the lean fingers and sighed.

The hand moved further down his back and reached his ass, and Wesley let go of Gunn's mouth to once again say, "Relax."

"Too late for that," Gunn mumbled, feeling the sweat trickle down his back. The request made more sense when Wesley slipped a finger into his ass. He tensed up momentarily, but then that finger started to move, and whoah, he'd had no idea that it could feel so fucking good...

"Ready?"

He nodded, unable to speak, and Wesley withdrew for a moment, nudging him to turn against the wall. Gunn turned around and leaned his hands and forehead against the cool white-tinted surface. He felt no need to worry anymore.

Gunn kept glancing at Wesley as he put his clothes on, and when he came to his shoes he forgot what he was doing altogether to just look. Wesley was putting on his shirt, holding the fabric down to his left shoulder with his chin as he stuck his arm in the sleeve. Wesley's hair was still wet after the shower he'd taken, and it kept falling into his eyes. Gunn grinned at the sight.

Wesley, having finished with the sleeve, started buttoning the shirt and looked up, raising his eyebrows att Gunn's expression. "Is my appearance somehow improper?" His tone was dry, but with a touch of humour.

"Nah, it's proper enough." Gunn made no move to get back to his shoes. "Hey, Wes?"

"That's my name, yes," Wesley replied, eyes cast down towards the buttons he was doing up.

"Who was... I mean... Who was your first?"

Wesley stilled, sitting down heavily on the couch. "Are we having that talk?"

"What talk?" Gunn asked, instantly defensive since he felt like he'd put his foot in his mouth again without realizing how. "I just asked a question. Which you don't have to answer if you don't want to, so I don't see how it's a 'talk'."

Wesley sighed. "Adam Howe."

Not having expected an answer so fast, Gunn didn't catch up at first. "Huh?"

"Adam Howe was my first. I was in E, he was in... lower Sixth, I think."

Okay, great, now Wesley was talking freaky white boy speech again. "What's that?"

"Oh, sorry." Wesley smiled a little and seemed more comfortable. "It's school years. It'd be like junior year for him and... last year of junior high for me, I suppose."

That made Gunn snort with laughter. "Not hardly. You'd have been fourteen, in that case." The pause that followed, and Wesley's expression, made him go cold. "You were fourteen?"

"Three weeks left to my fifteenth birthday. Yes." Wesley was smiling again, but there was a wrinkle between his eyes. "Do you still think this isn't a 'talk'?"

What Gunn thought was that he might throw up. "What sort of a perv does it with a fourteen year old boy?"

The smile stayed, though it tightened a bit as if it might turn into something else. "A seventeen year old boy, Gunn. It's hardly unheard of."

It wasn't, of course. Gunn had friends who claimed a younger age than that for losing their virginity. But they had been bullshitting, and even if it was true, they'd done it with girls, not boys – and definitely not with older boys.

"So were you..." He cleared his throat. "In love with him?"

The way Wesley furrowed his brow told Gunn the truth even before he answered. "Not really. But I liked him well enough."

"Well enough to sleep with him?"

"Oh, sure."

While Gunn pondered what to ask next, Wes got a strike of his own. "And yours?"

Gunn blinked. "I never did it with a guy before you."

"I know that," Wesley said mildly. "I meant girls."

"Oh. Then... that'd be Dorcas." All this time, and he could barely even say her name. He was surprised at himself – it wasn't like he had been that fond of her. She was just something he didn't mention. Like the smell of mildew in the head quarters. Like stuff Wes couldn't do. Like mom. He sat down next to Wes, feeling like someone was pulling him down.

"Who was she?" Wesley eventually asked.

Gunn shook his head, at loss for what to say. "A girl I knew. There's wasn't much of a gang back then, but a few of us hung together... You know."

"Sure."

There was an extended pause, and yeah, this was a 'talk'. A talk neither of them wanted to have, because Gunn didn't want to talk about Dorcas and Wes clearly didn't want to talk about that Adam guy. But someone was going to have to say something real soon.

He dug his hands into his pockets and as he did so felt a crumpled piece of paper in one of them. Oh yeah. The blackmail guy.

"Hey, Wes," he said, grateful for the opportunity to skip the 'talk' and head straight to work. "I got a case for you."

Wesley had brought Gunn to Madame Dorian's before, when they were putting up posters for the agency. That time, Madame Dorian had been out, and they hadn't run into anyone who could have pointed out Wesley as a former customer. He had been lucky.

He wasn't so sure he'd be lucky this time as well, and he didn't feel up to more embarrassing details from his personal life coming to Gunn's attention that day. They stepped into the lobby, and a girl Wesley thank God didn't recognize sent them over to the reception desk. His palm was getting uncomfortably sweaty, and he wiped it off on the back of his jeans, hoping Gunn didn't notice how nervous he was.

Fortunately, Gunn seemed occupied with other things, gaping at a nearby couple with an expression that was half appalled, half fascinated. Wesley wondered how long it would take before one of the pair asked him to mind his own business.

Madame Dorian came out of the inner room and gave the two of them a warm smile. "Mr. Wyndham Pryce! And you would be Mr. Gunn, I understand. How nice to see you both. Are you here on business or pleasure?"

"Business," Wesley said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "One of your clients has gotten into some trouble..."

"Oh, I couldn't tell you anything about a client," Madame Dorian said, a worried frown forming on her face. "I'm sure you understand that."

"Well, actually, that is the trouble." Her eagerness might be a bit unnerving with Gunn there listening, but there was no doubt that whatever had happened, it had happened without her knowledge. "It's a blackmail case."

"What?" Her expression changed into one of horror. "Who on earth would..."

Gunn jumped in. "Perpetrator's name is Lenny Edwards. Do you know him?"

She shook her head. "Can't say I do. Who's the girl?"

Wesley looked at Gunn, who grimaced. "Damn, I didn't get her name. But the guy's called David Nabbit – very rich, kind of dorky?"

She nodded slowly and turned to the receptionist, who was busy with what looked to be a register of some sort. "Maree, do you know where Lina's at?"

The girl barely looked up. "Coffee break. Should I get her?"

"Do, please."

Maree closed the register, gave Wesley and Gunn a toothy smile, and headed away.

"I do hope you manage to put a stop to this," Madame Dorian told them. "Otherwise it could be devastating to our reputation. Our girls are usually very cautious, but then, Lina's young. It's different with the older ones."

Wesley realized that she was trying to reassure him and felt his face heat.

"Oh, there she is. Lina! Talk to these gentlemen."

Lina turned out to be a very pretty and scantily clad demoness with pink quills sticking out of her head. "Both of them at once?" she asked with affected delight. "My lucky day."

By now, Wesley couldn't get a word out, and Gunn had to come to his rescue by pulling out a photograph from his pocket. "Do you know this man?"

Lina glanced at her boss's face, and sighed deeply at what she saw there. "Figures. Instead of a double paycheck, I get a pair of sleuths. Yeah, I know him. What do you want to know?"

Wesley's mind was on the case as they headed out, and so he wasn't prepared when Gunn said, "Okay, spill."

"Spill what?"

"Why you were doing such a beetroot impression in there. You didn't last time."

Wesley couldn't help glaring at him. "Last time, we hadn't already had one awkward discussion that day."

Gunn puckered his lips. "Mhm. You've slept with a demon whore."

Although he'd expected a statement like that, the bluntness of it still caused Wesley to stammer as he replied, "That's... I... just once."

"Is that a 'once' once or a 'once - twice - twelve times'?" Gunn asked cynically.

The question seemed rather unfair, and Wesley forgot to be embarrassed as he replied, somewhat offended, "Once. I wouldn't lie to you about something like that."

"No, I suppose you wouldn't." Gunn shook his head slowly. "Why? I mean," he continued before Wesley had a chance to answer, "why a demon? There are tons of girls... guys... you must have known that."

He did. The thought of going to any of the prostitutes Gunn knew shocked him, mainly because half of them showed up at Anne's on a slow night, and he knew just how old they were. At Madame Dorian's, the working girls were ageless predators who knew what they were doing, but that hadn't been the whole reason why he'd gone there and not to a human. "I was curious, I suppose."

"Curious." Gunn voice was flat, and he stopped walking to lean against the nearest wall and scrutinize Wesley. "I don't even know if I know you."

Wesley didn't either, but then, he barely knew if he knew himself some days. And he doubted there was another person on the planet that knew him better than Gunn did. "I'm sorry."

"Fourteen!" Gunn said, making a disbelieving grimace.

So they were back to that. Wesley shrugged. "As I said before, nearly fifteen."

Gunn sat down on the curb, arms resting on his knees, and sighed.

Wesley sat down too, figuring that he might as well tell it all now and have it over with. "It was a disaster, you know."

Gunn looked up. "That Adam guy?"

"Yes. I didn't even know him. He called me up one day to make him a cup of tea, only when I got there he asked me if I knew what a blow job was. When I said yes, he wanted to know if I could give him one."

Gunn's eyes didn't leave Wesley's face. "And you did?"

"And I did," Wesley confirmed, thinking back on the humiliating occasion. "I was -- terrible -- at it. He had to tell me how to do it, and I still very nearly gagged." He'd been in tears by the time they were finished, but he didn't say that. Some things went beyond honesty. "He did call me up again a few more times, but he'd stick to buggering me." He smiled a little, trying to ease his own discomfort as well as Gunn's. "I suppose he figured I wouldn't be able to mess that up."

"Called you up?" Gunn repeated, sounding almost fierce. "Didn't you have a say in the matter?"

"I did," Wesley said, knowing that he'd always been lucky to catch the attention of boys who'd give him a choice. "It was more inconspicuous that way. The older boys always called on the younger to wait on them, because of the fagging system."

"The what system?"

Wesley had never really given much thought to the multiple meanings of the word "fag", but Gunn's shocked exclamation made him realize just how strange that sounded, and he chortled a little. "I don't know why it's called that. The younger boys have to do household chores for the older ones - make cups of tea, light fires, polish their shoes..."

"Is that a metaphor for something?" Gunn asked with a suspicious glare.

This time, Wesley really laughed. "It could be. Anyway, the younger boy is known as a 'fag'."

"You're shitting me."

"I am not."

Gunn looked like he wanted to punch someone. "I don't like it. It's like some sort of slavery. And then the sex..."

"The sex was voluntary," Wesley pointed out mildly. He'd never turned anyone down, but then, he had been a lovesick teenager and not popular enough to worry about such things as decorum.

"For you," Gunn pointed out, alarmingly perceptive. "Was it just this Adam guy or more of them?"

"About half a dozen more," Wesley said. "And Robert West in my last year, though he was... more of a boyfriend, I guess you would say."

Gunn sighed deeply and turned his gaze away, staring at nothing. "Dorcas wanted out of here," he said at long last. "Kept saying she'd go to Wisconsin, to meet her dad. Except she couldn't just leave, she wanted to go in style, buy a bus ticket, have a proper bag packed. Not some little hungry street rat showing up on his doorstep, that he'd have to take in from pity, you know?"

"I do," said Wesley, who had heard similar stories when he worked in the shelter. They rarely seemed more than fantasies. "So, did she leave?"

Gunn gave a bitter laugh. "Not really. She decided to walk home alone one night. Got as far as five blocks before she ran into vampires."

"I'm... I'm so sorry." He'd heard similar stories before from people he knew, of course, but never from someone so close to him, and the short-spoken condolence seemed inadequate somehow.

His choice of words didn't seem to matter much to Gunn, though, who replied, "We got to the nest in the end, though. Wiped it out. At least that's something."

"Is that why... you do what you do?"

Startled at that, Gunn looked back at him and chuckled a bit. "I ain't on a mission for revenge, man. I did what I did long before. I've just gotten better at it, is all."

"So people don't get killed?"

"People always get killed," Gunn said, standing up. "I just make sure we stay dead."

The choice of pronoun didn't escape Wesley, and he remained seated. As far as he was concerned, the conversation wasn't over. If he was to be dragged through old school memories, he wanted something in return. "Do you miss her?"

"I don't think about her." Gunn's voice was short-clipped and hostile, and Wesley very nearly offered a stuttered, embarrassed apology for going to far.

Very nearly. But instead he pushed it.

"Why not?"

"Why -- Jesus!" The explosive shout only got Wesley calmer. He had made Gunn upset, but somehow he had a feeling that this was a good thing. "Because you don't think about that sort of thing! That's not how things work!"

Suspecting that there was more to come, Wesley sat quietly, waiting.

"That's not how things work," Gunn repeated in a lower voice. He turned away, facing the wall, and his voice was lower still as he continued: "Yeah, I miss her. But not enough."

And what was there to say to such a simple, gut-wrenching fact? "I see."

"Do you?" Gunn turned back, his face twisted in pain. "When someone dies, shouldn't there be... shouldn't someone..." He struggled with the words. "I miss her, but... I can't help it. I'm relieved, too."

"That it wasn't you," Wesley said, wanting to say all the right reassurances: that it was normal to think that way, it wasn't reprehensible or immoral, just human.

"That it wasn't Alonna."

Even with Alonna halfway across the world, Wesley found that he could still get jealous of her. "Oh."

"It's not fair, you know," Gunn said, rubbing the back of his neck. "She was a good kid. I should be able to..."

Was there such a thing as a "should" in a situation like this? Wesley wasn't so sure – but he knew there was no arguing with guilt. He rose to his feet awkwardly, and let his hand brush Gunn's – not holding it, on an open street like this, just a quick caress, skin against skin in silent comfort.

Gunn's fingers curled slightly in response, and the left corner of his mouth tilted up a bit. "Try to stay alive, okay?"

"I plan on it," Wesley replied, and even though he knew that wasn't what Gunn was talking about, he added, "It's just a blackmailer."

"This time," Gunn said glumly. "Next time it might be a nest of vampires, or... oh shit!"

Wesley's hand flew to his jacket pocket, and he cursed himself for bringing only a small knife. "What?"

Gunn exhaled through his teeth and kicked a stone down the street. It bounced against a trash can before disappearing into the shrubbery. "A nest. We were going to take it out tonight – it's kind of urgent." All of a sudden, he sounded like a little boy who wasn't given enough candy to please him.

The sky was growing lighter already, and Wesley shrugged. "They might have gone without you."

The frown forming on Gunn's face told Wes that this was not an option he had previously considered. "Yeah... and even if they haven't, I hate doing these things after dawn. Still, I can't just ditch them."

"Of course not," Wesley said. When he'd started the agency, it had never been his intent that Gunn should abandon all other duties to work with him. That part didn't trouble him, though Gunn's admission about dawn did. A vampire nest was a lot less dangerous after dawn – if you knew where to find the nest, after dawn might even be considered the preferable time to terminate it.

Provided, of course, that you wanted as little trouble as possible. It seemed Gunn still hadn't gotten over his tendency to see the hunt as a game. For that reason, it would have been nice to take Gunn with him to the blackmailer instead. But that wasn't an option. If they lost the goodwill of the gang, everything would become a lot more difficult.

"I'll get Angel," he said. "I'm sure we can handle the blackmailer together. You go find that nest."

"You can't," Gunn said with a wry grin that made Wesley realize just how foolish his previous statement had been.

"No – vampire."

"Vampire," Gunn confirmed.

Wesley threw another glance at the early morning sky. "All right. I suppose it can wait for tomorrow night. Do you want me to come with you?"

"Nah. Wouldn't go myself if I hadn't said I would. Go get some sleep."

The suggestion was more tempting than Wesley would like to admit. He hadn't slept since what was now yesterday morning, and even though the last of the bandages was now gone – thank heavens and good riddance – he was still a bit sore. "All right. Tomorrow night, then?"

Gunn nodded. "You, me, and the vampire."

Gunn had come to expect a lot of different things from Wesley's pet vampire. Mad ravings followed by compassion so genuine it was creepy. Ogling of tiny white girls who could kick your ass in less than a minute. Even rare humour, though it still managed to throw him every time the vamp attempted it.

But he hadn't expected the bad cop routine. Vampires didn't usually try intimidation. What they wanted, they could get by force. Maybe it was the soul that made a difference. Gunn didn't know, but what he did know was that Lenny sleazebag blackmailer Edwards looked about to piss his pants.

Well, good. He still thought fucking demons was a sick thing to do, but picking on a puny little dork like that Nabbit guy was just low. Served Edwards right to get a taste of his own medicine.

He had to admit, though, the vamp was good at it. Gunn had lived a long time on the street, and he wasn't afraid of vampires or cops anymore. A combo of both, though...

"I will dog you every night for the rest of your very short life," the vampire said, showing all his gleaming fangs in a wicked grin, "until you bring me what I want. Is that clear?"

Even though Gunn wasn't the target, he shifted on his feet. As for the sleazebag, he was practically nodding his head off.

"Good." The vampire let go, and morphed his face back to the glum Hollywood dickhead he usually looked like.

"What?" Gunn protested. They had gotten a good bunch of vampires that morning, but there were always more out there, and if he was going to get his work messed up by Wesley's cases, at least it should be some better cases than this "We're gonna waste another night on this lamebrain? Forget it. Let's just follow him home."

"You can't just..." Edwards started to say, but a quick second flash of the vampire's yellow eyes made him take it back. "Okay, okay. Follow me home. Take the photos. Just stay the hell out of my life once you're done."

Gunn grinned, glad to have this over with so quickly. "If you stay out of our clients'."

Wesley had been remarkably quiet during the whole thing, and as they were getting ready to go, Gunn noticed that he was rubbing his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" Gunn asked, trying to keep his voice low.

Wesley offered a weak smile. "Not very, no."

"Is it the injuries, or just phantoms?"

"Just phantoms," Wesley said.

His voice was slightly sarcastic, and Gunn couldn't blame him. It had been a stupid thing to say. To him, Wesley's phantom pains were old news compared to the things that bitch Faith had done, but he knew very well that those half-healed cuts weren't nearly as painful.

"Sorry." He lift his hand and closed it around Wesley's narrow shoulder in something that was meant to be both apology and an attempt at healing. "At least this shouldn't take long. We can go back to headquarters in no time – or to your place, if you'd prefer that."

"Headquarters will do fine."

Gunn speculated if perhaps it would be best for Wes to leave for headquarters right away, rather than go with them to wherever seedy Edwards lived. But he didn't say anything. There was only so much coddling he could get away with at once, and he didn't feel like pressing his luck.

After a last comforting squeeze, he dropped his hand, and they headed off.

"Man, these are so fucking sick." Gunn turned the photo over in his hand and scrutinized it in the weak light coming through the window.

He wasn't talking to anyone in particular. Wesley was still lying sprawled on the floor, more than half asleep, and although the vampire was sitting by the doorway, his strange mutterings made it clear that he was listening to someone else entirely.

Gunn felt a twinge of pity that the vamp's attempt to hold his madness back had failed – but at least he was quiet, not raving, and even now he seemed a bit "better". Besides, his presence kept people away from the doorway, and permitted Gunn to run his hand absentmindedly through Wesley's hair as he looked through the photos.

"Which way is up anyway?"

Wesley turned over, eyes partly closed, and said, "We didn't get those from the blackmailer for your personal amusement, Gunn." He reached out with a fumbling hand and snatched the photos away. "Mr. Nabbit has a right to... good Lord."

"Make a full sentence out of the following words," Gunn said with a grin. "I. You. Told. So."

Wesley was too shell-shocked by the photos to even glare at Gunn for his teasing. "Good Lord," he said again. "Why would anyone... ever..."

"So your whore didn't do that?"

"She's not my whore," Wesley said sharply. "And no. She didn't."

The horror in Wesley's voice was pretty comforting after seeing those pictures, even if the mere thought of your boyfriend having sex with a demon... Gunn was suddenly very grateful that Wes had such strict principles about safe sex.

He reached out for the photos, intending to fight Wes over them just for the sake of it, but was interrupted by the sound of glass breaking. Both their heads whipped up simultaneously, and the pictures fluttered to the floor. "What the fuck?"

"The smell," the vampire said, rising to his feet.

A loud cry of "vampires!" came from the outer room, and Gunn was running towards it before he had even realized that he was standing up. By the time he made it to the others, the room was already filling with smoke, and the guys were starting to panic.

"Don't they need an invitation?" someone cried out. Gunn didn't have time to see who, but the thought stuck to him – who had invited in vampires? It wasn't because he'd let Wesley's vamp in, was it? It didn't work that way. And it was light outside. Maybe it wasn't vampires at all, maybe it was some other kind of demons, or the cops...

While these thoughts were racing through his head, he managed to yell out orders, "Okay, everyone, get out! Head for the exits!" He pushed the people he could get his hands on toward the stairs.

"Gunn?"

It was Wesley, coming up beside him. Gunn pushed him along as well, eager to get him into safety. "Get out into the daylight!"

A firm hand grabbed him, and another held Wesley back. "STAY DOWN!"

The urgency in the command made quite a few others slow their steps. Although the bellowing voice didn't sound all that sane, Gunn knew that the souled vampire was back to his senses again, and something made him resist the urge to fight the grip.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Vampires. But they're up there."

Somehow Gunn didn't doubt it, and he echoed "Stay down!" to the others just as the strong grip loosened around his shoulder and a black coat swept past him towards the exit.

"Stay the fuck down!" Gunn repeated again, and all movement in the room stopped entirely, just a few coughs and sobs interrupting the sounds from outside. The sounds of fighting.

But it was day outside - how could he...?

Gunn knew he had to get up there and help. The air was still smoky, but he found his way to the weapons and grabbed an axe, and then headed for the exit. He was near the top of the stairs when a burning shape stumbled towards him.

"Jesus, man!" he said, dropping the axe so he could take off his jacket and try to beat out the flames. "You're on fire!"

"I know." Angel looked up with a face that was singed and sooty. "I'm sorry. They got two of you."

The flames were almost out now, and Gunn picked up his axe again, running outside. A white van was standing near the building, engine still running but all doors open and no driver in sight. There were some people lying on the ground, and the one of them slowly trying to get up he recognized as Jamie.

He hurried over and helped his friend stand up, noticing the blood staining Jamie's neck and T-shirt and making sure to look for a pulse. Bobby was lying by Jamie's feet, and in his case no pulse would be found – his throat had been torn out.

"What happened?" Gunn asked, supporting Jamie.

"Chain's dead," Jamie said. "And Bobby. The vampires – they were all covered up. We tried to fight. The one you brought in... he killed them all. He started burning. Is he dead?"

"No, he's okay." Gunn's thoughts were racing. Chain was dead? Bobby had never been much of a fighter, and the fact that Jamie was still alive was only due to his usual dumb luck, but Chain? They'd really been in trouble this time. And he had been sending people up the stairs, into the ambush, unarmed.

"I think I need to sit down," Jamie said weakly and did just that.

"Yeah," Gunn said, crouching down beside him and trying to examine the neck wound. It was a pretty neat one, not bleeding much, but of course there was no way of knowing how much they had taken. "Are you okay?"

"Better than last time." Jamie even tried to smile, though he didn't manage very well.

"You have to stop doing this," Gunn chided gently. "Your luck won't hold up forever."

Someone stepped up behind him, and turning his head he saw Wesley's worried face. It came to him suddenly that Wesley was another person he'd been ushering outside into the ambush. The thought made him straighten up and grab hold of Wesley's shoulder as if the threat was still there, as if the vampires hadn't been killed by one of their own, crazy and burning like a torch.

"I think they're all dead," he mumbled as he embraced Wesley. "But Jesus, if it hadn't been for Angel..."

At first, Wesley returned the hug, but he felt the Englishman stiffen in his arms at about the same time that Gunn remembered Jamie.

He threw a glance down, and knew from Jamie's expression that he saw not only what was done, which was harmless enough, but what it implied. And he knew that what Jamie saw, Jamie would tell.


	12. Teamwork

"They're acting all weird," Gunn said, pacing between the piles of books in Wesley's living room. "Trouble is, I can't tell if they're acting all weird because James told them, or if he didn't tell them and they're acting all weird because I am. Or, you know, if they're not acting weird at all and I'm being paranoid."

"I know the feeling," Wesley said and turned off the TV.

"So what should I do?"

Wesley shook his head. "I have no idea. I'm notoriously bad at dealing with situations like this one."

"But you're all calm. I can't be calm. You're dealing."

"I'm dealing because they're not my crew," Wesley said with an apologetic smile.

Gunn stopped. "Oh." It made sense, he supposed. After all, they macked in front of Angel all the time, and if some other of Wesley's friends – say that English clone of his and the girl with the funny name – were to see them together, he wouldn't give a rat's ass. Apart from what they might be telling Alonna, of course.

Shit, he didn't know what he wa goings to tell Alonna. Maybe it was just as well that she was in England and didn't have to find out right away.

"I do have something that might cheer you up," Wesley said, rising from the sofa and walking over to Gunn.

"Wes, I don't want to have sex right now..."

"A pity. But that wasn't what I was talking about."

Wesley dug something out of his pocket and handed it over to Gunn, who felt a slip of paper being pressed into his hand. He took it, puzzled.

"What's this?"

"Have a look."

Gunn unfolded the slip, which turned out to be a cheque for... His eyebrows shot up. "Jesus fucking Christ."

"I know."

"He must have written it wrong." Though it seemed pretty unlikely that David Nabbit would have written both the numbers and the letters wrong. Believing that three zeros should be two was one thing, but no one miswrote 'hundred' to look like 'thousand'. Especially not someone smart enough to make billions of dollars on computer software.

"I talked to him. He hasn't."

Gunn ran his fingers over the text on the cheque, as if the ink might come off and reveal the whole thing to be a scam. "Five thousand dollars," he said softly. "You could damn near buy back your bike with this."

"I don't have any use for my bike. And half of it is yours anyway."

Gunn's head jerked up. "Huh?" Yeah, they'd split the cheques before, no reason to do things differently now, only... "That's two and a half grand!"

"We're partners, remember?"

"Yeah, but it's two and a half grand."

"So it is. You do half the job, you get half the salary. What else did you expect?"

"No, that's what I expected, I just..." Gunn looked back down on the cheque. Two and a half grand. Jesus. He couldn't think of anything he wanted that'd cost him that much money. And all for getting back some porny photos.

A thought struck him, and he shook his head. "A third. Both of us only get a third each. You got to let Angel have a share too."

"Oh," Wesley said. "Yes, absolutely."

"We couldn't have done it without him."

Wesley gave him a funny look, and then smiled. "I thought you didn't like Angel?"

"Like's got nothing to do with it," Gunn objected. "He helped out, we gotta pay him for it. Besides," he added after a beat, "he saved my life."

"Mm." Wesley laid his hand on Gunn's ass and pulled him closer. "For that, he should probably get all the money."

"Let's not go overboard." He leaned in to kiss Wesley's earlobe, but looked up a moment later, wondering at the silence from the rest of the apartment. "Where is he, anyway?"

"Angel?" Wesley asked, his breath tickling Gunn's neck. "Grocery shopping."

"Whoa!" Gunn stepped back, throwing a worried glance at the door. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"You want him to be a partner, and yet you don't trust him to buy some groceries?"

"No, it's just..." It threw him off balance, hearing that word 'partner' used about Angel. Business partner, of course, but he had gotten so used to its double meaning, he almost got jealous. And even as a business partner, Angel seemed a weird choice. Still, if he was going to keep helping out, he had to be paid for it. "I guess as long as he comes back with the actual groceries and not three red roses and a chainsaw..."

The look on Wesley's face made him stop. "What?"

Wesley shook his head. "Nothing. You just reminded me of something I read once."

"Horror story?"

"Something like that."

Wesley's voice was still tense, and Gunn realised that the stupid joke had actually scared him. As if Angel, even in his crazier moments, would go Texas Chainsaw Massacre on them.

"Come on, Wes," he said. "I'm sure he'll be all right."

"Glad one of us is." The worry was so obviously real that Gunn stopped trying to protest and just pulled Wesley close. Holding him like this, he tried to remember the mornings when he'd wake up to no one's body but his own, no lean arm wrapping around his back (and damn it, if Wesley wasn't building up some serious muscle), no stubble scratching his face in a kiss. The memories were there, but they felt flat and unreal. This was reality.

"No fear, Wes," he said. "Even if it did happen, he won't get to you. He'd have to kill me first."

"And that's supposed to calm me, is it?"

"Why would Angel turn evil when he never has before..." Gunn's voice died away and he drew back, looking sharply at Wesley. That downcast gaze said more than words. "He has, hasn't he?"

Wesley nodded. "He did two years ago. I wasn't there to witness it, but as I understand it he was as vicious a monster as before he gained his soul the first time."

"And you didn't think I needed to know this why exactly?" Wesley still couldn't meet his gaze, and Gunn shook his head. "You thought I'd stake him."

"Wouldn't you?"

"Maybe. Once. Damn it, Wes, I owe the guy! How the hell could I?"

Wesley looked up and smiled, which did nothing to calm Gunn down.

"Get that stupid smirk off your face. I hate you." He embraced Wesley again and leaned his chin on his lover's good shoulder. "Bastard."

He could feel Wesley laughing, though the laugher was silent. Damn him, becoming all amused now that he'd gotten Gunn worried in his stead. As if the gang hadn't been trouble enough to occupy him, now he had to wonder if the crazy vampire was going to turn into crazy evil vampire.

A key turned in the lock of the front door, and his head whipped around. For a dread moment, he didn't know what to expect, but once the door opened, Angel stepped in juggling a large paper bag, a smaller plastic one, and the keys. It was hard to imagine anything less homicidal. Still, some vampires were great at pretending to be harmless, right up to the point where they tried to stick their fangs in your neck.

"They didn't have any cottage cheese," Angel said. "And I didn't know if you'd want regular cheese, so I... didn't..." His voice trailed off as he caught Gunn's expression, and though he didn't say anything he looked over at Wesley in confusion.

Wesley sighed, all traces of laughter instantly gone. "I told him about when you lost your soul... back in Sunnydale."

Angel stood there hugging the bags in his arms. "Oh," he said miserably, and then added, "Perfect happiness."

Knowing Angel, that might be a comment on the weather in China, but Gunn still asked, "Huh?"

"Buffy and I had a moment of perfect happiness. That's how it happened."

Perfect happiness? That was hands-down the most ridiculous trigger for a spell he'd ever heard of, and since Wesley and he started this Private Eye business, he'd seen more spells than he wanted to. "If that's a euphemism for something, I'm not sure I want to know what."

"It is," Wesley mumbled behind him. "Just what you'd think actually."

Gunn raised his hands. "Whoa, not listening!" So Angel and that Buffy girl had... and he had... Fuck, she was lucky to be alive. Though seeing how she'd beaten Alonna in a minute straight, he suspected luck had nothing to do with it. That girl could hold her own if anyone could.

Jesus, she had slept with a vampire. Had he told her? But vamps were colder than humans; there was no way of not knowing when you got so close to one.

Gunn got a very very strong urge to wash out his brain with strong bleach. Still, if that was how Angel went evil, he couldn't see it happening any time soon. Not unless he got crazy enough to hallucinate that he was doing Little Miss Pink Leather Pants, which, granted, was a definite possibility.

Maybe they should buy some shackles.

Angel shifted the bags, which were nearly slipping. "It's not going to happen again."

"What if it does?" Gunn asked, not taking his eyes off the vampire.

"Then you kill me." Angel gave a small, melancholy smile and walked out into the kitchen with the groceries.

Gunn stared after him, and then at Wesley. "Is he serious?"

"Very much so, I'm afraid."

Gunn looked back towards the kitchen as he said, very softly, "I would, you know."

"I know," Wesley said. "You should."

"It's not him. If you were an evil vampire, I'd kill you too."

Wesley gave a half-smile. "Good to know."

"Would you do the same for me?"

"In a heartbeat."

"Good." Gunn thought about it. "Though I wouldn't actually have a heartbeat."

The half-smile was definitely a whole one now. "There is that, of course."

"Wes..."

"Yes. Yes I would."

Gunn could hear the refrigerator door open and close. It was hardly fair that Angel got to stock them up with food he couldn't actually eat. He wasn't evil vampire yet, after all.

"Come on," he said, grabbing Wesley's waist and leading the way into the kitchen. "Let's make sure there ain't a chainsaw at the bottom of that bag."

Wesley had barely gotten into the truck before his cell phone started to ring. He contemplated putting Gunn's axe on the floor, but it was still rather bloody, and Gunn could be quite a fusspot when it came to blood on the seats.

"Would you...?" he asked.

Gunn rolled his eyes and fished the phone out of Wesley's pocket. "I'm the one driving. Now you want me to take your calls too?"

"Well, I'm the one holding your bloody weapon!" He didn't even realise the pun until he had said it, at which point his mouth started twitching in the most treacherous way.

Gunn grinned back at him. "I'm gonna figure out a way to make you the driver. You better believe me." The phone kept blaring out its rings, and he muttered, "Yeah, yeah," before picking it up. "Hello? Yeah, but he's kind of occupied. Can't it wait until tomorrow? What do you mean it's..." He turned the hand that held the steering wheel so that he could cast a glance his watch. "Yeah? Who is it? Huh. I'll ask."

He put down the phone and gave Wesley an apologetic look.

"Client?" Wesley asked.

"Hell no. If it was a client, I'd ask them to wait until we'd gotten a bit of sleep. It's Anne. She's got someone there who needs to see us."

"Who?"

"She wouldn't say. I guess one of the kids has gotten into trouble."

Wesley frowned. It wasn't like Anne to be so secretive, and he couldn't think of any of the kids who'd want to be anonymous. Perhaps she thought they were being overheard. Whatever the reason, he owed it to her to help out. Still, he had to take into consideration the possibility that it might be a trap, that she could be held against her will.

"All right," he said. "Tell her we're on our way."

While Gunn finished talking to Anne, Wesley looked back to see what Angel was doing. He could see him sitting on the platform, his arms resting on his knees. To Wesley, he looked like a meditating Buddhist monk. It was amazing how much better he had become lately – he'd still talk to people who weren't there, but tonight he had managed to get through the entire fight without allowing himself to be distracted even once, and he was still trying, day by day. If indeed they were walking into a trap, Wesley would be – though it surprised him – quite a lot more at ease having Angel there. And he rather suspected that even if Gunn wouldn't admit it, the same was true for him.

Gunn hung up and put the phone back in Wesley's pocket. "So what do you think?" he asked.

Wesley grimaced. "Can we bring in weapons?"

"Sure," Gunn said, keeping his eyes on the road. "I'd love to have some teen punk try and take my axe."

His point was undebatable. "All right, no weapons."

"Thank you."

"How about Angel?"

Gunn gave him a quick glance. "Wouldn't go without him. People change their habits, it makes me shifty. And Anne is not in the habit of letting people in after curfew." He was forced to hit the brakes as a battered, brown car in front of them made a sudden turn to the left, and he ground the heel of his hand into the horn with a force that indicated he was bothered by more than the careless driver.

Strangely enough, Wesley found Gunn's irritation comforting – at least his fears weren't just paranoia, and they'd be prepared if anything happened.

They drove on in silence, and it wasn't until they stopped outside the shelter that Wesley realised that they hadn't told Angel where they were going. But Angel was still sitting in the same pose, as if he hadn't even noticed where they were. So much for being better.

"Angel?" Wesley called as he stepped out of the truck. "Are you coming in with us?"

Angel looked up and got a puzzled expression as he saw the unfamiliar street. "We're not home."

"That's right, we're at the shelter." Wesley had to resist the urge to speak to Angel in a gentle, condescending tone, as if reassuring a small child. "You remember the shelter, don't you? We came here after we got you out of that gladiator ring."

"Right," Angel said slowly, his eyes drifting towards the barred door. "Are we here to see the boy?"

"No. At least not that I know of." Wesley weighted Gunn's axe in his hand, uncertain what to do with it. He couldn't very well toss it in the back – it would be stolen faster there than inside.

Gunn promptly solved the issue by taking the axe from him and tossing it to Angel. "Here. Don't let anyone take it from you."

His course of action didn't seem to surprise Angel, who nodded and grabbed the axe with both hands. Wesley, however, raised his eyebrows. "You trust him with it more than you trust me?"

"Well, yeah," Gunn said with a half-smile. Spreading his hands out as a balance, he continued, "Superhuman strength on one hand, and..."

"One hand on the human," Wesley filled in. "Right." There was no doubt that Gunn had a point. Any street kid who'd try to take a weapon away from Angel would be sorry indeed.

Something about the shelter disturbed him, and it took a while for him to realise that it was the silence. He had been working early shifts before, and there had always been voices coming from inside. Quite often music too. Now there was nothing. He knocked on the door, to get rid of the silence as much as to call Anne's attention.

It only took about a minute for Anne to open the door. She frowned a little when she saw Angel, but unlocked the bars.

"You brought a vampire here?" she asked.

"Just invite him in, Annie," Gunn said impatiently.

"She doesn't have to," Wesley said. "He's been here before."

"And I'm not too happy about that," Anne muttered. She ushered them all in, though, before barring and locking the door again. Nodding at the axe Angel was holding, she asked, "Are you going to carry that?"

"Gunn told me not to let anyone take it," Angel replied.

Anne sucked her cheeks in and breathed out hard through her nose.

"Come on, Anne," Gunn argued. "What were we supposed to think? You call us over here at this hour, and there's not a soul in sight..."

"They're all sleeping," she pointed out. "But Lindsey thought you'd be more available at night."

"Lindsey?" Gunn scoffed. "McDonald? I can't fucking believe this."

"He's waiting in the office," Anne said, pointing with a thumb over her shoulder.

Wesley focused his gaze on the office door, approaching it with apprehension. What would the lawyer be up to this time? More promises mixed with half-veiled threats, or a more direct approach? He had no doubt in his mind that Wolfram & Hart could get them arrested - or even killed - if they wanted to, and the thought of an eye-to-eye conversation alarmed him, because he couldn't see the purpose of it.

"Talk to him, will you?" Anne added, and the pleading tone in her voice made Wesley snap out of his thoughts.

"Has he threatened you?" he asked.

"No, of course not. I just can't take any trouble. Please."

"There won't be any trouble," Lindsey McDonald said, opening the door to the office. He stood in the doorway, watching the rest of them, and for a split second no one was even breathing. "Not from me."

He sounded sincere, but then, he had sounded sincere the first time Wesley had met him as well, even though his only real concern had been for his firm. It didn't mean a thing. What was new, however, was the fear. Lindsey sounded frightened, and that was unexpected enough that Wesley stopped his frantic speculation and gave a curt nod. "All right. I'll listen. Why are we here?"

Lindsey's shoulder sank an inch, and he took a deep breath. "I need your help."

"What?" Gunn protested, making a wry face. "You've got to be kidding me."

Lindsey's gaze was firmly fixed on Wesley. "I want out."

"Boo-fucking-hoo," Gunn said, grabbing Wesley's arm. "Come on, let's get out of here."

Wesley didn't budge. "No." To Lindsey, he added, "Shall we take it in the office?"

"No, we shall not take it in the office," Gunn said, "we shall leave right now! That guy cancelled your green card, Wes. Out of spite."

"I know what he did," Wesley said, surprised at the sound of his voice. It sounded like an echo from another generation. "It was my green card. You want to leave, leave. But you don't tell me what to do."

"They sponsored the ring," Angel said quietly.

Wesley had half forgotten Angel's presence, and the comment gave him pause. "I know," he said, surprised that Angel did. He'd told him, of course – but somehow he had assumed that Angel's memory had declined along with his sanity. Now he felt a pang of regret. "You don't have to stay either."

Angel grasped the handle of the axe so hard his fingers whitened. "I'm staying."

"Yeah," Gunn said, sounding none too happy about it. "We're not leaving you alone with him."

"I'm not here to hurt him," Lindsey said. "Or any of you."

"You shut up," Gunn said. "Wes, are you sure?"

Wesley nodded and turned his gaze back to Lindsey, holding it. "Why now? What happened?"

"There's this client... a killer," Lindsey said, fumbling for words. "She's blind, but it's like she sees with all her body. Creeps me out. But that's not the thing. The thing is, there's a new contract. She's gonna kill some kids."

"I see," Wesley said. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking hard. The murder of children might be enough for anyone to grow a conscience. Might be. But could he take the risk?

"You think I'm lying."

"No... I don't. But I do have to wonder what the right price would be to persuade you to go straight back to you office and sell us all out, along with the children."

"I wouldn't do that," Lindsey said, and there was a tinge of falsehood in his voice that made Wesley all the more convinced that the rest of it was true – and that truth would be no reason to trust Lindsey.

"Of course you would," he said. "You sold your soul once. That easily becomes a habit."

"You think you know so much about me," Lindsey said with sudden heat. "A few months of slumming and suddenly you're world wise? Weren't you a Watcher, once? Useful education, that. Runs in the family, unless I'm mistaken. Now maybe you would have looked at life a little differently if you'd started out with nothing. And with nothing, I mean no shoes, no toilet..."

Wesley stared at him in utter disbelief. He simply couldn't believe that anyone would come up with a sob story like that in a shelter of all places. True or not, it was an insult to the kids, to someone like Li who had nothing but his life and had risked even that to save Angel. And it was a hell of an insult to Gunn, who was standing less than five feet away from Lindsey, a cynical expression on his face.

"I'm sorry," he said when Lindsey took a pause to breathe. "I'm not used to playing this game. Is this where I'm supposed to say that, oh no, we all lived in a cardboard box on the road, with nothing to eat but cold gravel?"

Gunn chuckled, which caused Lindsey to throw him a murderous glare and say, "This isn't a game."

"Whatever the reason," Wesley said, "I think you chose a poor venue for such a line of defence."

"In other words," Gunn said amiably, "can it, lawyer-boy. Our Wes may have been a golden boy, but you ain't no different from the rest of us. And I gotta say, the teen whores upstairs get a whole lot of more respect from me than you do. Sure, they went at a cheaper rate, but then, one night with a rent boy isn't quite the same thing as a lifetime with his soul, now, is it?"

"A lot longer than a lifetime," Lindsey said. His voice was soft now, and he closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his head. "Fine. Whatever. Will you help me?"

Trust wasn't really the issue, Wesley realised. He had sworn to help protect the innocent, and fired or not, he still believed that. Danger came with the job; he'd forever have the physical reminder of that, and he'd come to accept that the next injury might be fatal. What difference did it make if it came due to betrayal? At least he'd be prepared.

"I'll help the children," he said. "If that's the same thing, so be it."

"Can someone explain to me again," Gunn asked, "why born-again-boy can't be the one doing this?"

"It's a two-man-job," Wesley said in that annoying, patient tone of voice that really should be saved for Angel during his rambling times, because Gunn had his head all together, thank you very much, and didn't need anyone talking down to him. "I can't do it. Do you want Angel to?"

"I could do it," Angel said, sounding a bit affronted. "I could tune Darla out – I'm getting good at that. But why should we do it at all?"

"To save the children," both Wesley and Lindsey said, and wasn't that freaky, hearing both of them speaking at once like the Disney ducklings.

"We don't even know that there are any children," Gunn said, scowling at Lindsey.

Lindsey bared his teeth in a wide grin. "Well, you'll know when their dead bodies are found, won't you?"

"I hate this guy," Gunn told Wesley.

Wesley sighed and rubbed his eyes behind the glasses. They were starting to look swollen. Dawn was seeping in the windows, and the three of them had been up all night. Even the damned lawyer was going wrinkly at the edges.

"What do you want us to do, Gunn? I'm open to suggestions."

Gunn remained silent, because what could they do? He wished Alonna could have been there, or one of the guys from the gang – hell, all of the guys from the gang. Most of all, he wished for a simple fight. Instead, he had a couple of maybe-nonexistent kids about to be killed by a maybe-nonexistent girl Daredevil, and his so-called team consisted of an evil sleazebag, a nutcase vampire, and... well, Wes. He loved Wes like crazy, and when they were sparring he could tell that despite that arm, Wesley would be a really great fighter one day. But that day hadn't arrived yet. Meanwhile, Gunn was the one who had to go into the high quarters of an evil he wasn't even allowed to kill.

On the other hand, if he said no he knew that those children, real or not, would never leave his thoughts.

"All right, I'll do it," he said reluctantly. The sound of his own words made him edgy, and though he tried to sit down and plan along with Wesley and lawyer-boy, he reached a point where he just had to jump up and head for the door.

"You guys will figure something out," he said. "I'm gonna get some air."

He couldn't leave the house, of course – once the doors were barred, you needed a key to open them from outside. Instead, he went to sit down in the kitchen.

He was surprised to find Anne there, eating a grilled cheese sandwich.

"I thought you'd gone to bed," he said, sitting down opposite her.

"Uh-uh," she said, taking another bite. "I can never sleep when people are making big hero plans in my office."

Gunn snorted. "Right." Still, she had a point, and coming to think of it, she kept a bed in her office. Sure she could sleep somewhere else, but he could understand if the situation would make her a little wary. Damn it, the thought of that slick son of a bitch making up plans with his Wesley...

"How can you stand them?" he asked with sudden venom. "How can you take money from them? Don't you know where that money comes from?"

"No, and I don't want to know," she said, her face stiffening. She swallowed the piece she was chewing and put the sandwich down on the plate. "We're doing good with that money. That's what matters."

"They defend demons," he said, leaning forward to force her to look him in the face. "Keep them safe; make sure they can go on killing. They tried to get Angel out of the picture, 'cause they don't like his visions saving people they'd rather have dead. All of Wesley's sources say the same thing..."

"I don't care!" she said shrilly, standing up. "I told you, I don't want to know!"

He stood up as well, towering over her across the small table. "Then you're whoring yourself out as badly as he is! Those lawyers are covering up for monsters, and you..."

"Don't you dare!" she cried out. "Don't you dare take the moral high ground with me! You and Wesley, playing at being super heroes..." At the last word, she slammed him hard in the chest with the heel of her hand for emphasis. Tears were forming in her eyes. "Leaving me to pick up the pieces. It's all about killing the monsters for you, isn't it? Once you've saved the damsels, you don't care what happens to them. Well, guess what? Damsels have to eat, and I'm feeding them! You've been fed here often enough that you ought to know that, and you took him away!"

She tried to slam him again, and he caught her hand, bewildered by her words.

"I took... who? What are you talking about?"

"I don't care about the fight," she said. There were still tears in her voice, but she bent her head down so her eyes were hidden behind drapes of hair. "I care about the kids. They need to stay alive for more than just the one night there are monsters trying to eat them. You're making it pretty damned hard for me. First Wesley, now the lawyers?" She shook her head. "What do you want from me? Do you want me to run this place alone, on a budget of zero? I can't do that."

"I didn't... Jesus." Gunn stepped around the table and put his arms around Anne. "Annie girl, I didn't take Wesley away. They're the ones who took his green card, those lawyers."

"They wouldn't have done it if he'd just been working with me," she said. "Nobody would have bothered, but you had to drag him into the fight..."

"He was in the fight already, Anne," he told her softly. "He was trying to escape it after what happened to his arm, and who can blame him, but that's not who he is. He is the fight. Okay," he amended, "so he's not very good at it. That's beside the point. He will be. This line of work – it's great, and you're great, and I couldn't admire you more..."

"Except when I'm whoring out to law firms," she added wryly.

"Yeah, sorry about that," he said. "Thing is, Wesley... he'd lost his dignity. If I could help him find it, I'm not going to apologise about it."

She looked away. "Sometimes I hate you both."

"Anne..."

"I need those lawyers." She loosened herself from his hug and sat down again, looking up at him. Her eyes were dry now. "Evil or not, they're helping me."

"We'd help you, Anne. You know that."

She actually smiled at that – a wide, girlish smile. "That's awfully sweet of you, Gunn. But financially, that's not going to help much."

Point. At least... and then he remembered the cheque. "Actually, we got a shitload of money from a case, so if you want it..."

She thought about that for a moment. "How much is a shitload?"

"Five grand. Though I can only offer you my share."

"Oh, Gunn." She shook her head, smiling. "I won't say no, though I probably should. It's very generous of you. But it's not close to the kind of money we get from Wolfram and Hart."

"Course not," he said, suddenly feeling very tired. He needed sleep; sleep and something to eat – and maybe a world that didn't suck.

"You'd have to be Bill Gates to be able to give that kind of money away."

Bill Gates. Computer software. Jesus fucking Christ. Gunn sat up straight, grasping Anne's hands. "If I get you – not Bill Gates, but a billionaire with a shitload of money – would you stay away from Wolfram and Hart?"

"Yeah, because you know so many billionaires."

Gunn grinned. "I only need to know one."

Anne watched him closely with an expression he'd only seen on her face when people had tried to convince her they weren't stoned. "All right," she said at long last. "You give me a billionaire; I'll give up Wolfram and Hart. No problem."

"Great!"

"Does that mean you won't give me that money for the shelter?"

"I'll give it to you." He leaned over and grabbed her head, kissing her on the forehead. "Right now, I could give you the world."

A cough from the doorway caught their attention. Wesley was standing there, his head cocked and his thumb in the front pocket of his jeans. "Is this a romantic encounter?" he asked, his voice sounding twice as English as usual. "Should I leave?"

It was pretty cool to see how fast Anne could turn deep red. She had to have ultra-speedy blood vessels or something.

"No! No... we were... he was offering... that is to say..."

"Relax, Annie," Gunn said, seeing the glint in Wesley's eye. "He's messing with us."

Wesley smiled, and Anne's face faded into its normal colour, only to grow little pink spots on her cheeks as she said, "Great. Embarrass me for nothing, why don't you?"

Wesley looked baffled, and Gunn didn't blame him, but then, he didn't blame Anne either. Sometimes he forgot that not too long ago, Anne had been just another flaky dopehead. She'd grown a lot of spine since then, but tonight, after that chewing-out he'd taken – no, he didn't blame her for not wanting to be the butt of a joke, even a good-natured one.

Wesley seemed to pick up something of that too, because he said, "I'm sorry," and added in a very apologetic tone, "It was – it was supposed to be a joke. A bad one. We're all tired."

"Do you at least have a plan?" Gunn said, his flippant change of subject a way to try and ease things over.

"Mm. We just might be able to pull this off." He nodded towards the office. "Are you coming back in to hear the details?"

"Yeah, sure." He gave Anne a pat on the hand and rose from his chair, joining Wes at the door.

As they were leaving the room, Wesley turned back and asked, "Anne? Are you feeling quite all right?"

She sighed and picked up her grilled cheese sandwich, which was starting to look pretty drab. "Go save the world. Both of you."

Gunn missed his axe. Sure, if Wesley was right he wouldn't need it, but breaking into the evil white folks' Mecca, it would have felt a lot better to be armed with something other than a blow torch and some pixie dust. And to make it all worse, he was in a sewer again. He'd spent more time sewer-walking during the past few months than in an entire life before Wesley.

What really bugged him was knowing that Lindsey was walking in through the front door in his fancy suit like every day. He half hoped the guy would run into trouble – not necessarily lethal trouble, just the kind that'd shake him up a bit.

Except you never knew what he might end up saying if he got shook up.

Gunn found the bars and started working on them with the blow torch. At least if Lindsey hadn't put his pass where he said he would, Gunn would still have clear passage back. Unless ugly demon thingy from Wesley's book showed up early and caused some trouble.

"If I get killed doing this," he muttered to his absentee lover as he took the bars off, "I'm going to haunt you forever, you limey son of a bitch."

He climbed out of the sewer and discarded the overall he'd been wearing. Beneath it, he had one of Wesley's old suits. It was uncomfortable as all hell, and he hated the tie, but at least he might pass for a lawyer in it. A good thing they had been able to take out the seam at the sleeves without it showing, because it'd look mighty weird otherwise.

The pass was right where it was supposed to be, and Gunn checked his borrowed watch – fancy enough that he could almost understand selling your soul for it, if it wasn't for the whole evil thing. Okay, so right about now, Lindsey should be fixing the security cameras, which meant all he had to worry about was ugly demon thingy.

His fingers were cold as he punched in the code, and he held on tightly to the blow torch with the other hand. It ruined the lawyer image, but he wasn't getting rid of it until he knew that the demon was out of the picture.

The door opened, and he heard a growl that caused him to swing the blow torch in a wide circle. It hit the demon in the nose, giving him enough time to find the bag of dust in his pocket and blow it in the demon's face.

It froze so fast Gunn had to bite his cheeks not to laugh. If only all fights were that easy! He circled the creature, scrutinising it in case he ran into one again.

"So, you're the Preggothian, huh?" he told the inanimate demon. "Damn, you're ugly. And here I thought you just didn't portrait well. Don't get me wrong," he added, "some of my best friends are ugly-ass demons."

He returned to the sewer long enough to cautiously drop the blow torch in, and as he passed the demon on his way into the offices, he amended, "Okay, so that was a lie. None of my best friends are ugly-ass demons."

Once inside, he lost all desire to make jokes. There were no people around, but there didn't need to be. The vault was just like the lawyers: slick, speck-free and with a million dollar sparseness. It made him feel ten years old again, with arms and legs a mile long and no way to stop himself from knocking over the milk glass. He moved cautiously across the floor and restricted even his breathing as he searched through the cabinets.

He found a bunch of CDRs that might be what he was looking for, and so he grabbed them all and stashed it away in his backpack. Lindsey and Wesley had both wanted him to carry an attache bag, and he could see their point – way more lawyerly – but he had still refused. He wanted his hands free.

Having done what he came for, he started looking around, only half-aware of what he was doing. As mysterious and forbidding as the cabinets looked, he suspected that the wealth inside was rather like the stuff he'd already taken: incredibly valuable, but only if you already knew what you were looking for. This was an evil law firm, not an evil jewellery store, and you wouldn't be able to sell this shit on the black market.

Not that he'd want to. Taking food at the supermarket was one thing, but he'd never been the type to take cars apart or break into places, and his aunt would've given him a good chewing-out if she'd known he was even considering it.

He turned to leave, and that was when he saw the scroll, lying on display like some holy shrine. So swipeable – and very clearly valuable too.

Well, they were evil. Might as well fuck with them a little.

The moment his hand closed around the scroll, alarms went off, and he hurried out of the room, past the still frozen demon and down into the sewer. He fumbled for the cell phone – sure, he could leave Lindsey out to dry, but after taking that scroll, his conscience was already queasy enough.

"Get out," he said once he heard that slightly Southern voice in his ear. "Now!"

Something rustled above him. A guard? He hoped it was a guard, because if it wasn't it was the demon, and he was all out of dust.

"Oh, fuck," Gunn said and started to run.

Wesley had chosen to retreat to Old Al's back room and get the computer started long before Gunn arrived. It was better than sitting in the shop with Al watching him from the counter and Robert the mask watching him from the wall. He didn't think he was especially paranoid, but after an hour or so, those two really started to unnerve him, and so he excused himself.

He quite liked the back room, as it turned out. It had a vague scent of dust and incense that appealed to him, and though it was full of various items, none of them had eyes.

Rather like their current foe. He had looked her up at the Internet, and her record was quite colourful, though she had never been convicted. Wolfram and Hart knew what they were doing.

When Gunn did saunter in, he was grimy, sweaty, and alone, but still in one piece. Wesley gave him a relieved smile and asked, "Where's Lindsey?"

"Don't know. Still in there, maybe." Gunn sat down on a large cardboard box and shook his head. "I had to leave in a bit of a hurry." He almost knocked a stack of book over and managed to straighten it in the nick of time. Looking around, he asked, "Why are we meeting here, anyway?"

"Computer files require a computer. Do you have a computer? I don't have one. Although I am thinking perhaps I should get one."

"I'm surprised old Al's got one. That guy's so..."

"Old?"

"Well, yeah. More than old. Some fancy word that means really god-damned old."

"Antediluvian," Wesley said dryly. "Do you have the files?"

Gunn took off his backpack and dug out the cases. He opened one of them, handing the disc to Wesley, and put the rest down on the table.

"Thank you," Wesley said, sliding the disc into the computer. Glimpsing something else in the backpack, he nodded towards it and asked, "What's that?"

"That's... uh..." Gunn slowly took a scroll out of the backpack. "That's the hurry I was in. It set off some alarms."

"Why did you take it?" Wesley asked, taking the scroll from Gunn and turning it over in his hand. It looked very ancient and rather interesting.

Gunn shrugged uncomfortably. "It seemed important."

"Hm." Well, it probably was, if it set off the alarm. "I'll take a look, as soon as..."

His voice died away as he saw the computer screen filling with meaningless symbols.

"Fuck!" Gunn said. "Now what?"

Wesley kept staring at the screen, his heart sinking. He could only think of one 'now what' and it wasn't one he was too fond of. His jacket was hanging behind him on the back of the chair, and he reached down, fishing out first the cell phone and then the phone book. Slowly, hoping for another solution to come to him, he searched out Giles's phone number and dialled it.

"Giles? This is Wesley. Do you... by any chance... have Willow Rosenberg's telephone number?"

"Of course," Giles replied, not even asking why Wesley was asking. "Give me a minute... Ah yes. Do you have a pen?"

Wesley turned to Gunn: "Pen and paper?"

Gunn opened the desk drawer and retrieved both items, holding them up. "Ready when you are."

"Got one now," Wesley said into the phone. "So what's the phone number?"

He got the phone number from Giles and relayed it back to Gunn, who dutifully wrote down all the numbers and then hesitated with the pen hovering over the pad of paper

"Could you ask him..." Gunn started.

"Yes?"

"About Alonna?"

He had almost forgotten about Alonna, which embarrassed him. She had saved his life, after all. "Gunn wants to know if you've heard anything about Alonna. Uh-huh?" He listened to what Giles had to say and then told Gunn, "He says she's fine, and that she's a lot of help at the coven. Also – hang on – 4423-75001372."

Gunn wrote down those numbers as well. "What's that?"

"That's Alonna's phone number," Wesley said softly and was rewarded with a wide grin.

Calling Willow was in some ways harder than calling Giles. What did you tell someone once you'd opted for letting them die rather than having the bad guy win? He couldn't even give an honest apology, since he didn't regret it. To make it all worse, once he'd greeted her he heard her voice droop into a kind discomfort that told him clearer than words that she knew what had befallen him, and that any remainder of hard feelings was overshadowed by pity.

"I was wondering if you could help us out with some computer files we need decrypting."

"Oh, sure!" Willow said eagerly. "We've been decrypting computer files today, I'm on a roll here, it'll be fun. "It may take a while, but we can do it over the phone. Uh.. can you type... while you're... on the phone?"

"No, but Gunn can," he said, happy to surrender the phone. Any longer, and he might have said something unforgivable to that sweet, well-meaning girl.

As Gunn and Willow worked together over the phone on decrypting the computer files, Wesley started on the scroll. Unrolling it, he found such a strange mix of languages and alphabets that it was both exhilarating and a bit frightening.

He returned to the shop, where Old Al was standing with his elbows on the counter, doing the crosswords.

"How's it going in there?" Old Al asked without even looking up from the crossword.

"Oh, just fine." Wesley looked down on the scroll, and half-hid it behind his back, though he wasn't sure why he would want to do such a thing. "I was wondering... if I might borrow some of your dictionaries? Just until we can return home."

"Help yourself," Old Al said, jerking his head towards the bookshelf by the counter. "No beverages, though. You spill it, you own it."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Wesley assured him, going over the bookshelf to look at the selection. There were three different Aramaic ones, and putting the scroll down carefully on the floor, he picked the dictionary he knew to be most comprehensive. He also took out a Sumerian dictionary, a Cantonese one (he really should have learned that language a long time ago), and after a look back in the scroll and a moment's thought, an Aegean one. That would do for starters, though he had no doubt that this was a long-term project.

He sat down on the floor and started leafing through the books, careful not to crease the pages. The scroll wanted to roll itself up all the time, and it was a tiresome task to keep it open while he looked up words, particularly since he had to be so careful not to destroy it.

The next time he looked up, his back was aching from keeping an uncomfortable position for so long, and the shadows were growing long. Gunn stood in the doorway to the back room, watching him.

"Was I right?" Gunn asked. "Valuable stuff?"

Wesley gave a wide grin and wiped his dusty palm on his sweatshirt. "Prophecies of Aberjian."

Old Al looked up at this, giving a low whistle, and even Gunn looked impressed, though he had most likely never heard of the prophecies in his life. "Is that so? What do they prophesize?"

"I have no idea!" Wesley said happily. "But they're here! And they're not lost! They've been lost for centuries – and now they're not."

Gunn smiled. "Yay team us."

Wesley pulled himself together. Perhaps he was being a tad on the pathetic side, but finding the lost prophecies of Aberjian struck him as a perfectly good reason for an enthusiastic reaction, up to and including patheticness. Still, they had a case to solve, and a pressing one at that.

"How did it go?" he asked.

"We're in. That Willow chick really knows what she's doing." Gunn shook his head in admiration.

"And Miss Brewer?"

"She does, too." A spasm of disgust came upon Gunn's face. "She blinded herself, would you believe it? It was all part of some self-discovery mojo."

"What?" Wesley asked, thinking he might throw up. After all these months, he had still to get used to all the implications of his own disability, and the thought of anyone permanently mutilating herself on purpose was unfathomable. Then again, she didn't have to see people's glances, and judging by what Lindsey had said her senses were stronger than an average person's. So maybe she wasn't missing out. Still, it made him queasy to think about it.

"Yup," Gunn said. "She was off studying some Ninja, Nanjy..." He took a scribbled note from his pocket and threw a glance at it. "Nanjin. Some kind of religious thing off in Pajaur, wherever that is."

"India," Wesley said, remembering a dagger in his father's study. His heart sunk. "Well, that explains her powers."

"It does?"

"Yes. They believe enlightenment is seeing with the heart, not the mind. If Vanessa Brewer studied with them, she'd be more sensitive to her surroundings than even a sighted person."

"Which she is," Gunn pointed out. "This is not good."

"No." He didn't want to say the next part, but lying was not an option. "She's damned nigh unstoppable."

"Well, we've heard that kind of shit before," Gunn said, putting the note back in his pocket. "And we're stopping her."

"I need you guys to pick up the mentor guy and keep him safe," Gunn said. "If assassin chick turns up, you fight her, but be careful. She doesn't need eyes to see your every move."

"And what will you do?" Rondell asked. His arms were crossed over his chest, and most of the other guys were mimicking his position.

"We'll find the kids – preferably before she does."

"'We' as in you and Wesley?" Jamie asked, sounding pretty cocky for someone who was afraid of his own shadow.

Gunn threw a quick glance at the others. None of them met his gaze. So the little son of a bitch had told on him, just like he'd thought. Damn it. He did not need this right now. "We as in me, Wes, Angel and the lawyer," he said, crossing his own arms. "You got a problem with that?" The question was directed at Rondell, not Jamie. Jamie wouldn't dare do something on his own accord. If anything was to happen here, Rondell would be the one holding the strings.

Rondell clicked his tongue. "I don't know. Maybe. How come you trust a vampire more than any of us?"

"Don't be an ass," Gunn said, more harshly than he'd meant to since he tried to drown the treacherous thought that Rondell was telling the truth. "He's stronger than all of us and a lot harder to kill. I need him where she's most likely to turn up. If someone wants to come along, fine, but I need two teams. Wes and Angel are on mine, period, and I want Lindsey where I can keep an eye on him."

There was a moment's tense silence, and then Rondell nodded. "George, you're going with him. The rest of you guys are coming with me."

At any other time, Gunn would have told Rondell off for trying to take charge, but he felt in his guts that if he did, he'd have a rebellion at his hands, and he didn't have the time to deal with it. And so, knowing what it might cost him, he just nodded. "Thanks," he said, the word bitter in his mouth.

He had to hand it to George – the guy had the sense to keep quiet as they headed back for Wes and the others. Maybe it was just embarrassment, but whatever the reason, it gave Gunn the chance to banish all worries from his mind and concentrate on the mission at hand.

He was pleased to find that Angel was grim and focused, and that even Lindsey had wiped off the attitude. As for Wesley, he had both a short sword and a gun attached to his belt, and over his white shirt he was wearing – Gunn's mouth opened of its own accord – a tight, black leather vest.

Gunn wanted to ask, 'who sexed you up?' but of course that was out of the question with George around. Instead, he settled for, "Ain't that a bit too Han Solo for you?"

"It's harder to cut someone wearing leather," Wesley said, his tone so clipped he sounded almost pompous. "As for the weapons, I have not previously fought a foe with Miss Brewer's powers, and I considered it best to be prepared for everything."

"If that's even possible," Gunn muttered.

His fears were confirmed once they reached the house. Blind children, the files had said, but he wasn't prepared for what he found. Two boys and a girl, each from a different continent and having their hot cocoa with sandwiches – it'd had been a pretty little Kumbaya picture if not for those small faces contorted with fear, only their milky-white eyes showing no emotion, and for the woman towering over them, the tip of her cane already sullied with blood. Gunn took a few steps forward and almost stumbled over the dead guy lying on the floor. Jesus Christ.

The woman turned around at his gasp of breath, revealing a dispassionate face and eyes as white as the children's.

"You take her, we take the children," Wesley said, bringing Lindsey along with him to the shuddering little ones.

Vanessa Brewer caught their motion and swung her cane out, sending Wesley flying against the wall. Gunn sent a blow in her direction, but found himself punched in the guts so hard it took his breath away. God damn, that woman was strong.

A gunshot made him jump. George – good thinking, except that she was still human, and gunshots could attract unwanted attention. He'd just love to have the cops show up after they managed to kill her. If they managed to kill her.

It seemed pretty doubtful they would. The bullets were flying right against them, but she just dodged them, and when George's clip was empty she knocked the gun out of his hand. As unlikely as it seemed, she was kicking all of their asses. The only upside was that Lindsey and Wes had gotten the kids a good way towards the door.

Vanessa seemed to grasp that her targets were getting away and lunged for them, sticking her cane through the stomach of the nearest person standing in her way.

Who just happened to be Angel. He stumbled backwards and stood there wavering as she pulled the cane out and ran ahead, but the next second he had caught his composure and punched her just as she was about to run her cane through the neck of the Mediterranean boy.

She almost fell over, but managed to get back up and turned around, a puzzled look on her face. Angel stood his ground, waiting for the next blow.

Up until that point, she had moved like a sighted person, always spotting the exact location of each and every one of them. Now, her head moved slowly from side to side, as she tried and failed to 'see' Angel.

George had managed to get back his gun and was reloading it, and Wesley and Lindsey were still trying to get the kids out, which left Gunn to try and aid Angel in the fight. He wasn't so sure that he should, though. The two of them – vampire and blind woman – were now involved in some sort of strange dance, where Angel would hit fast and then freeze into immobility, while Vanessa circled around him, sometimes finding him but usually not.

"Change of plan," Wesley said in Gunn's ear. He held the little girl's hand and reached out to let Gunn take over. "Here."

Gunn took the little girl's cold and clammy palm, and Wesley turned to George as he took out his gun. "George, ready?"

The two of them fired together. Vanessa dodged the bullets like before, taking a step to the side. This sent her straight into Angel's arms, and he simply put his hands around her neck and twisted.

Her body fell to the floor, the white eyes staring up at the ceiling.

"What the hell just happened?" Gunn asked.

"Heat," Wesley replied, slightly out of breath. "Body heat – Angel doesn't have any."

Angel had been standing motionless over Vanessa's corpse, but at the sound of his name he blinked, shook his head and met Wesley's gaze. "You grazed me," he said, sounding almost petulant.

Wesley smiled. "I figured it wouldn't harm you." Still holding the gun, he brushed the hair out of his eyes.

Gunn got a very, very strong urge to pin Wesley to the bed right that instant. To distract himself, he squeezed the little girl's hand and told her, "No need to be scared."

"I'm not," she said, and she did sound a whole lot calmer than he would have been in her position. "We're safe now."

"That's right, you are."

One of the boys stepped away from Lindsey and fumbled for the little girl's hand. He frowned a little, and then cocked his head and told Gunn, "That's not how I play cops and robbers."

Despite his heating cheeks, Gunn had to laugh. There was definitely a downside to having people around who could see into the heart of things. "Shut up."

Wesley woke up to a much too bright morning sun and a warm brown body next to his. Torn between shading his eyes against the former and wrapping his arm around the latter, he finally lift his hand to his temple and blinkingly got out of bed, moving across Gunn as he did so. Gunn remained sleeping. Well, they had had a long night – a long couple of days, for that matter. At least now the children were safe with their mentor, and their telepathic abilities would be put to better use than to embarrass adults, though it did seem to be their favourite little game.

He put on his bathrobe and walked barefoot to retrieve the morning paper from the post box. Back in the Academy, his demon detection teacher had imprinted on them the importance of reading the papers, since so often there were hints that could lead to paranormal activity. Preparation, preparation, preparation, as always. Wesley had found it to be good advice, and kept up the habit.

Settling down in the kitchen, he started on the paper. With the ease of practice, he skimmed through the main headlines and the foreign affairs – all great for general interest, but hardly ever anything of use for his work – before moving onto the briefer articles.

He found nothing vital in the local section and moved on to entertainment and economics without expecting much. At home, he most likely would have skipped them, but then, this was Los Angeles.

And it was in the economics headline he found the headline that raised his eyebrows, though it wasn't paranormal as such: 'McDonald new Junior Partner at Wolfram and Hart.' So Lindsey had chosen to resell his soul after all.

"And he would be quite wise," Wesley mumbled to himself, remembering an old quote attributed to Mirabeau, "to take money for muck."

Well. It was disappointing, but somewhat expected. Even so, Wesley brushed the paper aside, feeling oddly disappointed in it, as if the sheets of paper were somehow to blame for Lindsey's treachery.

He wondered what effect this would have on them. Would Lindsey step back, now that they had worked together, or would he pursue them harder, to prove to his bosses that he could? Wesley hoped he never had to hear from the man again, but suspected his hope was in vain.

The soft sound of naked feet came closer, too loud to be Angel's, and he had a smile ready when Gunn showed up, in his underwear and with pillow creases on his cheek.

"I thought you'd be sleeping for hours still," Wesley said.

"Same to you," Gunn said. He walked over to the coffee pot and sniffed its contents. With a grimace, he then proceeded to start making some of that brown water he labelled coffee. "Angel's out cold in the living room. Can a vampire die in his sleep?"

"If he's staked in his sleep, then, yes."

"You know what I mean. It's like having a turtle sleeping in its shell. Until he wakes up, there's no knowing if he's dead or alive."

"If he's not dust, he's not dead."

Gunn just grunted. He seemed to be in a pretty foul mood. It could be due to lack of sleep and caffeine, of course, but it could also be due to something more dire, and so Wesley asked, "Is something going on?"

Gunn took a cup from the sink and rinsed it under the faucet. "Nope."

Wesley waited.

"Except I have to go talk to the gang."

"About last night?" Wesley asked.

"Mm."

"I thought they did fine last night. George was a tremendous help."

"George's a good one," Gunn said, pouring coffee into the cup. "I think he'll stay. If he gets the chance."

"Gets the chance?"

Gunn sighed and sat down opposite Wesley. "It goes like this. Not too long from now, Rondell is going to come to me. He'll tell me that the gang's not too happy about the way I've been running things. That they're not sure I'm up to the task anymore. I'll ask if that's how everyone feels, and a few of them might say no... George might say no, for one. But thing is, we're not that many altogether anymore. Chain and Bobby are dead, Alonna's over in England. We can't afford to split the crew up. If too many people say yes, the rest of them are going to have to follow – and I'm on my own."

Wesley thought of Rondell, a no-nonsense, tough young man, but loyal to the core. Or so he'd thought. He shook his head slowly. "I don't understand. Rondell is your friend. What changed?"

"We changed," Gunn said, his voice harsh and gravelly. "You and me. Together. Crews like mine aren't run by fags. They're just not."

As unreasonable as he knew it to be, Wesley felt a pang of guilty conscience. Perhaps that was the reason his answer became so angry: "That's ridiculous. You've led them forever. What is it they expect you to do? Start wearing high heels and fainting at the sight of blood? This hasn't changed you."

Gunn watched him in silence, and finally smiled a little. "There's a vampire asleep in the living room, and I'm not even going to try to kill him. Hell, I admire him. You've got me fighting humans and talking to demons, and my baby sister's off in Europe 'cause she tried to kill a Slayer. I've changed all right."

Wesley looked down, at loss of what to say.

"So have you," Gunn continued. "You're stronger than you used to be, and faster. Not so by-the-book and eager to please anymore."

That was unexpected, and Wesley found himself smiling back.

"We've changed, yeah. And I don't blame them for being wary." Gunn shrugged. "But personally, I think they're missing out."

"Can't you convince them of that?" Wesley asked, trying hard to keep his voice steady.

"Maybe. But if word gets out... They can't afford to be seen as weak."

"They're your friends."

"Not going to do them a fat lot of good if they're dead," Gunn said matter-of-factly.

He was serious, and that gave Wesley pause. For years, he had tried to keep his personal life as far away from his father and the Council as he possibly could. It had become second nature to him. And yet, what would have happened if they'd found out? Disgrace, certainly. Possibly a sacking and some financial trouble – all of which had come to pass anyway.

This was life and death for several people, and secrecy was a train long since passed.

"I'm sorry," he said, meaning it wholeheartedly.

"Yeah, well." Gunn started drinking his coffee. "That's life. Anything in the paper?"

Wesley put his elbow on the small headline at the bottom of the economy pages. That news could wait until later. "No job for us today."

That was, after all, the truth.


	13. Dreams and Awakenings

Waking up, Angel could hear Gunn and Wesley speaking in the kitchen, and though it was little more than a murmur, he lay listening for a while, letting it ground him in reality. It had become such a chore, untangling the dreams and the waking world, but he knew he could manage it when he heard those voices and smelled freshly brewed coffee.

But there was no smell of coffee. He stood up and walked into the kitchen, where Wesley sat at the table, surrounded by books and note pads, while Gunn sat on the work bench, sharpening his knives.

"Shan-shu," Wesley said, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "Or possibly shu-shan."

"You don't know if you're reading backwards or forwards?"

"It's a complicated dialect."

Angel walked past them both without greeting, his mind set on the percolator. He removed the disturbingly light pot and looked into its brown-tinted emptiness.

"There's no coffee," he said.

Gunn gave a wry grin. "Someone drank it all."

"I'm sorry about that, Angel," Wesley said, still rather preoccupied with his books. "I was starting to get tired."

"Some people sleep when that happens," Gunn said. "I'm telling you, if you sit around up with those books one more night, you'll go insane. And not the soulful, 'I see dead people' insane like Angel here. I'm talking hardcore, Bates motel insanity."

Angel let the comment slide, mostly because Wesley did look a bit tired. "Maybe you shouldn't have come with us to the lair last night."

"Keep him inside, and all he does is go back to the books," Gunn pointed out. "And drinking all of the coffee. He's driving me crazy."

"Then it'll be three of us," Angel said. He dug threw his pocket and found some wrinkly bills. Not much, but he could hardly go shopping with one third of an uncashed cheque. "I'll buy some more coffee."

Gunn rolled his eyes. "You're a vampire. Can't you go one night without coffee?"

"Yes, but I don't want to."

Gunn seemed about to say something, but his eyes met Wesley's and in the end, he just shrugged and returned to his knives.

In all honesty, Angel had found he liked grocery shopping. It was such a mundane, normal event, even if he had to wait until after dark to do it. It took him out in public, to people besides his ghosts and the two fighters who - as much as he liked them - really didn't need him hanging around during off hours. And yet it didn't require him talking to anyone; not even the shop clerk.

Even though he was just out to get coffee, he skipped the 7-11 down the block and went straight for the supermarket. There were enough people there that even if Darla did show up, it's be easier to ignore her. The sounds of footsteps following him in, he could tell himself belonged to just another person.

It wasn't Darla who showed up first, though. It was Doyle. Rounding a corner, Angel found him standing in the aisle, his face distraught.

"You?"

"I'm sorry," Doyle said, shaking his head slowly.

"What are you..."

Something brushed Angel's hand, and he glanced aside, but before he could see what had touched him, his mind exploded with pain. A vision. He could see some hooded figures gathered around a large box, and a man in a suit – that Lindsey guy.

The pain faded. He still kept his eyes shut, fighting nausea, but started to pull himself off the floor. A slight hand – Doyle's hand – closed around his.

"I won't desert you now," the familiar Irish voice whispered, so close he could feel the breath tickle his ear.

"Sir?" That was most definitely not Doyle; too high-pitched and American. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Angel said, standing up slowly. He opened his eyes and tried to smile at the worried, pimply young face in front of him. "Just a dizzy spe..."

bleeding man vampire bite scaly demon eats what he can dead woman dead man dead baby limbs all torn apart never any voice woman in a box crying child wait for the judgement horned demon sun going black blood in their eyes blood in their mouths chased by vampires beating each other bruises and cuts down to the bone face all twisted scared woman in a box caught on a cross twisting and screaming whips cut deep spikes through their heads a spider eats their hearts took her whole family killed her too she sucks out their brains faces change all crying crying screaming woman in a box woman in a box in a box...

Angel screamed, but he couldn't separate his own voice from the ones in the vision, didn't know whether he was lying or standing. All he knew were those images, all that pain, and the hand squeezing his.

"Doyle," he pleaded, "help me!"

But he could hear no answer, had no body. Was the pain.

Since falling asleep on top of very rare books was generally considered a bad idea, Wesley did agree to get some shut-eye, if only until Angel returned with the coffee. He chose to lie down on Angel's spot on the sofa, rather than in the bed, since then he was bound to wake up from the squeaks of the door. Cheapest burglar alarm ever, a squeaky door.

Right after he had drifted off, or so it seemed, he felt a hand shaking his shoulder.

"Huh... um... What?" He blinked a couple of times, and peered up at Gunn's slightly fuzzy face. Even without his glasses on, he could see that Gunn looked worried, though he couldn't imagine what kind of worry would make him wake Wesley up after first nagging on him for three days in a row to go to sleep.

"It's Angel," Gunn said, his voice tense and low. "He had a vision at the supermarket."

"Oh." Wesley fumbled for his glasses and found that he was lying on them. "What of?"

"I don't know. He's still having it."

Wesley started to understand why Gunn had seen it fit to wake him. He sat up straight, ignoring the head rush this prompted. "Hallucinating, you mean?"

"I mean screaming his lungs out over at the hospital."

"Hospital? Gunn, he's a vampire!"

"I know, but I can't exactly tell them that, can I? Some guy trying to be helpful called an ambulance. I figured at first, okay, they won't think he's dead the way he's screaming, so we'll just wait until he gets better and then sneak him out of there. But he's not getting any better, and they keep prodding him and doing tests on him... sooner or later, they're gonna figure they hit jackpot in the freaks department."

Wesley put his boots on and stood up. "How long are we talking, here? When did this happen?"

"Couple of hours ago."

He stopped short, staring at Gunn, who had the decency to look ashamed. "A couple of... They called a couple of hours ago? And you didn't wake me?"

"I figured I could handle it." Gunn shook his head slowly. "I think he's dying, Wes. Or at the very least, he's losing what's left of his mind."

Without another word, Wesley went to put on his jacket, and then continued down the stairs to the truck parked outside.

He couldn't trust his voice not to shiver in rage, and so they drove in silence to the hospital, always staying slightly above the allowed speed limit. For that, Wesley was grateful, even if he still resented what Gunn had done.

But once at the hospital, Wesley forgot all his anger at the horrible, inhuman howling coming from down the corridors. "My God. Is that him?"

"Yeah. He never stops, either."

Wesley started running down the corridors, following the noise. It grew steadily stronger until he reached a door where a white-coat man – doctor, nurse, who cared? – tried to stop him from going inside.

"I'm family," he said. "He's my brother."

"Oh." The man let go and followed him inside.

Angel was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by wires and machines that would do him no earthly good whatsoever. His hands and feet were restrained, but the rest of him was thrashing wildly, tears streaming down his face. And all the time that screaming, not interrupted by any need to inhale. A nurse was filling a syringe with blood from his arm, which was bad, but it could wait. Wesley hurried up to Angel's other side, taking his hand.

"Angel? Can you hear me?"

Angel just continued screaming, showing no evidence that he heard or saw anything around him. Wesley felt a hand on his shoulder, and out of the corner of his eyes saw that it was Gunn who had caught up with him. He leaned into that hand, willing it to support him enough so that he could help Angel somehow.

"Excuse me, sir?" the man who'd tried to stop him began. "Your friend Mister Gunn here mentioned that your brother has a medical condition, but he didn't know which one."

Wesley glanced at Gunn, who cleared his throat.

"Yeah, uh, that's right. I told them about his blood disease and how it causes... uh... extremely low circulation and..."

"...and it affects his respiratory system," Wesley filled in. Oh, how he loved Gunn. "It's called... eh... Lamia Incruentatis. Or something like that."

"Go check it up once you're done with the blood," the doctor – Wesley was fairly sure he was a doctor – told the nurse. He pointed at another person standing further away from the bed. "That drug you mentioned... combined with his condition... that could explain it. What I don't understand is how he's alive at all."

"Drug?" Wesley had barely noticed the police officer before. Now he saw a young, pretty face, blonde hair and cold blue eyes, and he pieced those traits together into a memory. The detective he'd seen when he helped Li – whatever her name was. She had claimed she didn't care for Angel, yet here she was, lying for him.

The doctors kept asking questions, and he and Gunn fed them unconvincing lies. Sooner or later they would find out that there was no condition of the type he was describing, and once that happened, he didn't know what they'd do to Angel. He supposed it was lucky the vampire hadn't shown his game face yet.

"Mister Pryce, if I could have a word with you," the police officer said. "I'm Detective Lockley."

"Of course," Wesley said, wanting to talk to her as much as she seemed to want to talk to him. "Can my... Gunn come along?"

"Yeah, sure," she said impatiently, ushering them both out of the room and into an empty part of the corridor. Once she was sure they were alone, she said, "Okay, what the hell is wrong with him?"

Wesley shook his head. "I don't know. He gets visions..."

"I know. Got them from Doyle, right?" She looked towards Angel's room, his screams almost drowning out their conversation. "This is a vision?"

"If it is, it's lasted longer than ever," Gunn said. "Even with the hallucinations..."

"Who are you, anyway?" she interrupted, sounding annoyed.

"I'm his partner," Gunn said, gesturing towards Wesley.

She stared at them for a moment, and then shook her head. "Yeah, whatever. So, hallucinations. Is he finally losing his marbles completely? Is that it?"

"I told you," Wesley said, "I don't know." He hoped that wasn't the case – if so, it wasn't a question of getting him out of the hospital and trying to find what was wrong with him. "He's never been like this before. We have to get him out of here."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Lockley asked. "They're not going to discharge him while he's like that, and it's not like we can sneak him out, the way he's screaming. They'll find out we lied to them, you know. These are doctors, not slow Joe in the back row. And when they do find out, do you think there's a chance in hell you could pry Angel away from them even with a crowbar?"

"Can't you tell them it's a police errand?" Wesley asked.

"I don't have the authority to yank anyone out of a hospital. You'd need a chief of police - or better yet, a bigshot doctor. Know any of those?"

"Maybe Lindsey could..." Gunn started.

"Lindsey's back with Wolfram and Hart," Wesley interrupted. "They promoted him."

Gunn gave him an open-mouthed glare, but didn't say anything. Well, he supposed honesty was something they both had to work on. It would be hard to form any sort of real partnership if both of them were trying to spare each other.

"I don't much care for those lawyers" Lockley said, "but I guess McDonald could have bribed them, if nothing else."

Gunn grabbed Wesley's arm hard. "Nabbit."

Wesley had heard about Gunn's promise to Anne, and now gave his lover an irritated look. "Oh, for crying out loud, you can't use David Nabbit as your personal piggy bank."

"David Nabbit the billionaire?" Lockley asked. "You know that guy, I suggest you call him. Right away."

Wesley scowled at Gunn, who just shrugged and said, "Come on, Wes. He wants to play with the big guys. And this is kind of an emergency."

Wesley didn't like it one bit. Using David Nabbit's social inaptitude for their own purposes, even if the man would agree to it, was beyond reprehensible. On the other hand, this was more than "kind of" an emergency, and any other options failed to present themselves.

"All right," he said reluctantly. "Call him."

Gunn rather thought Wesley overdid it with the apologies after David Nabbit had arrived, considering that all the guy did was talk to a couple of doctors, shake a lot of hands, and mention something about a donation that didn't sound very committing to Gunn – and hell, even if he ended up donating money to the hospital, it was a hospital. They probably needed all the money they could get. What was Nabbit going to spend it on, women?

At least they'd managed to get Angel out, though the drive home was a disaster. Gunn and Lockley had to stay in the back of the truck, restraining Angel, while Nabbit drove the truck as if it was... well, Gunn didn't know what kind of vehicle you drove like that, all stops and starts and near-misses at the corners. He was convinced Wesley had to be a better driver, but unfortunately he hadn't been able to convince Wesley in turn.

"So how do you know Angel?" he asked, sitting down on the vampire's feet to avoid getting kicked again.

She gave him a frosty look. It was funny; she really wasn't all that pale. White, blonde and blue-eyed, sure, but not like an albino or anything. But she gave off this really cold vibe that made her seem more colourless than she was, like she was made of ice or something.

"He helped me out on a couple of cases," she said. "Before I found out what he was."

"And then what?"

"Then nothing," she said sharply. "You do know what he is, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do," he said, looking down on Angel's crying, distorted face. He wanted to say something else, to take the edge off that disdain, but he didn't know what. Wesley would've had a whole line of defense ready for why Angel was different from other vampires, but Gunn couldn't quite bear to look this woman in the eye and say that hey, never mind all those people he killed in his day, because he saved me and mine. And what difference did a soul really make in a mind that was going to rot?

Somewhere beneath that human face, there were fangs waiting to come out. There was no way Gunn could deny that. But the guy who had gone down to the supermarket that evening for coffee – that guy wasn't just a demon.

The truck screeched to a halt, took a couple of small skips, and stopped completely. Anyone else driving, and Gunn would have given him a few choice words. It wasn't Nabbit's money that stopped him, it was the eager look on the man's face as he and Wesley came back to help unload Angel. Like a little puppy-dog tripping over his own ears.

Gunn wasn't the kind to kick puppies, though judging by Lockley's expression her foot was itching to try it. And Wesley seemed faintly embarrassed, like it was his fault Nabbit was on the sad side of things.

Getting Angel up the stairs proved a nuisance. They started with Lockley and Nabbit grabbing the arms and back as Wesley and Gunn took the legs, but halfway up, Lockley lowered her arms and asked, "What floor was it again?"

"Third," Gunn said, and what the fuck, they'd told her that downstairs. She didn't seem the scatterbrained type.

"Damn it, it's the spell," Wesley said, and Gunn remembered the weird markings on their doorposts designed to keep cops and lawyers out. "Detective, if you and Gunn would switch places... thank you."

Nabbit looked up the stairs, a bead of sweat forming on his forehead. It wasn't like Angel would hold still while the others traded places. "Is there really no elevator?" he asked, as if they'd be walking up three flights of stairs carrying a raving lunatic just for the fun of it.

"Sorry, no," Gunn said, grabbing hold of Angel's back and shoulder. "But it's not that much further, really."

They managed to get Angel the rest of the way up, ignoring the occasional neighbour peeking out from behind safety chains. Once in the apartment, Gunn steered for the living room, but Wesley stopped him.

"Put him in the bedroom."

"Are you sure?" Gunn asked. Sure he wanted Angel to be comfortable, but apart from the sofa, the bed was the only decent sleeping space in the apartment, and no way could both he and Wes fit on the sofa. "If this is a long-term thing..."

"The bedroom, please," Wesley said, his voice cold.

So he didn't even want to entertain the possibility that Angel could be stuck this way. It made the whole thing seem so much worse – Wesley wasn't usually given to blue-eyed optimism. If this did prove to be a long-term thing and Wes was stuck in denial mode, Gunn didn't know he'd be able to handle it.

After they had dropped Angel down on the bed, Lockley brushed her palms and asked, "So, what now?"

"We'll take it from here," Wesley said. "You've been more than helpful. Thank you."

Gunn kept quiet. In his opinion, they could have used some more help, but it creeped him out having cops around the house. Nothing against the lady. And Nabbit, well...

"If there's anything you need," Nabbit said, "I want you to know that I'll be ready for your bat signal at any time."

Bat signal? Okay, Gunn was starting to see why this guy made Wesley cringe so. That was just beyond dorky. Still, he was offering his help, same as Lockley, he deserved the same respect.

"Thanks," he said. "We appreciate it. And if you get any more cases... blackmailers or... you know, whatever, we're your guys."

"Oh, I know, I know," Nabbit said, putting his hand on his chest. "Battling the forces of darkness, even now... You guys rock."

"Thanks. Bye now," Gunn said mildly.

He had to admit, he was a little bit relieved seeing the two of them leave. What with Angel's flailing and crying, he'd found it hard to be sociable.

"You gotta admit, the guy's kind of sweet," he told Wesley.

"Very sweet," Wesley agreed coolly.

"And I'm still glad he left." Gunn sat down on the edge of the bed, holding Angel down with a lighter hand – the vampire's movements were slower now. He was exhausting himself, most likely. "Wes, you got to face facts. Angel might never come out of this."

"I know," Wesley said, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "I just think we need to consider all possibilities before we give up hope."

"Oh, absolutely," Gunn said. Angel's flailing arm caught him on the nose, and he grabbed the wrist. "Hey, knock it out, fang-boy..." He trailed off, seeing the strange mark on Angel's skin. It looked like a drawing of a crutch hitting a ball. "What the hell is this?"

Wesley moved closer to see. "It looks like... some sort of spell."

"Son of a bitch," Gunn swore. "Someone did this to him. On fucking purpose. A god damn fucking spell."

"A spell," Wesley repeated. His voice sounded so strange that Gunn looked up.

Wesley was smiling – a wide, bright, boyish smile.

"Wes?" Gunn asked. "Are we on the same page here? Someone..."

"Did this to him," Wesley said. "Yes. Which means it can be undone. It's not forever, and I won't have to stake him."

Stake him? Jesus Christ. So that was why Wesley wouldn't even consider the sofa.

"I'll have to find out what the symbol means," Wesley said, sitting down as well. "But when I get back..." He leaned in and gave Gunn a deep, long kiss, his hand rubbing against Gunn's crotch.

"Hey," Gunn said, somewhat out of breath, when Wesley broke loose. "I was excited before you even started, here."

"Good," Wesley said, standing up. "You watch him. I have to go and talk to my sources. I'll find a way to fix this."

"Great," Gunn said. Angel's hand hit him again, and he took hold of it. "See if you can find some hand cuffs, though."

Wesley grinned, already by the door. "For him or for you?"

Gunn stared after him, but couldn't think of anything to say until the front door was already closed and he heard Wesley running down the stairs. He looked down on Angel. "Handcuffs, huh? Well, I'll try anything once."

Angel screamed. His voice was starting to sound hoarse.

"Aw, shhh, pal," Gunn said, stroking Angel's forehead. "It'll be all right. Wesley knows his stuff. He'll reverse the spell, and then I'll rip the balls off the bastard who did this to you. You'd better believe it."

It was tough, sitting here with Angel and not knowing if he could hear anything you had to say. And beyond that, the noise really grated on Gunn after a while. He started to wish Wesley would be back soon for his own sake as well as Angel's, which made him feel a bit guilty.

But Wesley didn't come, and Gunn started to wish they hadn't been so quick to send the others away. He took a bathroom break and spent the whole time tense and listening, in case Angel took a turn for the worse. Whatever "worse" would be.

This was ridiculous. Once he got back into the bedroom, he took his cellphone out and called Anne.

It took long before she answered – hardly surprising, he realized as he glanced behind the curtain and found that it was still dark outside – and when she did, she said no.

"I can't," she told him. "I've got to prepare breakfast in two hours, and I can't spend those two hours listening to a screaming vampire. I'm sorry."

"Okay," he said, because he could see her point, even though he wished he didn't. "Do you have anyone there who might?"

She thought about it. "Manuel?"

"Manuel's a dipshit."

She didn't deny it, or ask why he couldn't use one of his own. But then, Anne tended to know what went on out there, so chances were she'd already heard that Charles Gunn was inches away from being kicked out of his own gang.

"What about that kid who helped Wes?" he asked. "Li?"

"He was shot last time, Gunn."

"Well, at least then he's devoted."

There was a pause, and Gunn pressed the phone close to his ear so Angel's cries wouldn't make him miss anything Anne might say.

"All right," she said finally. "I'll ask him."

"Thanks, Annie. You're a rock."

He hung up and smiled at Angel, stroking his arm. "We're gonna get a bit of company. You don't mind, do you?"

Angel's cheeks were wet with tears now. It was weird, seeing a vampire actually weep. Gunn wondered if they could all do that, or if it was due to the soul thing.

It couldn't have been more than ten-fifteen minutes until he heard something from the kitchen. He frowned, not sure if he had imagined it, and stepped up towards the door. Hearing another sound, this time from the hall, he walked out of the room. It couldn't be Li – no way could the kid have gotten there so quickly, and the door was locked anyway.

"Wesley?" he called, but there was no reply.

Stepping into the kitchen, he found no one there, just the pile of books Wesley had left on the table.

The books. But not the scroll. Instead, there was a white stone, roughly the size of a golf ball but shining with a dimmed light. As he stepped closer, the ball got brighter – so bright that he closed his eyes and put up a hand in defence.

The blast was so loud that it drowned out all sounds from the bedroom. Pain stung his arm and face, and he felt himself being flung backwards. Something large and hard hit the back of his head and body, and then he heard nothing at all.

"Got it," Rick of Rick's Majick N Stuff said triumphantly, waving a small leather volume.

Wesley hurried to his feet. "You do?" He had been to five different magic shops and had almost given up hope.

"Ayup," Rick said and showed Wesley the page. "Mark of Voca. Particularly nasty fellow."

"Does it say how to reverse his spells?" Wesley asked, scanning the words to look for a clue.

"Hmm..." Rick started leafing through the pages. "Words of Anatole. Found in..." He drew in a disappointed breath between his teeth. "The lost scrolls of Aberjian. Sorry."

"Got them," Wesley said. "Thank you."

"Got them?" Rick's voice became high-pitched from incredulity. "You have the prophecies of Aberjian? You?"

"Me," Wesley said with a smile. He half expected Rick's eyes to fill with dollar signs.

"Excellent. If you ever, uh, think of selling them..."

They both knew that Wesley would never ever sell something so rare and valuable if he could help it, but he didn't want to dangle the hope in front of Rick and then take it away either, so he just said, "I'll keep you in mind."

"That's all I'm asking."

On his way out of the shop, he tried to phone Gunn, but no one picked up. Odd – but maybe Gunn had put the phone down somewhere and was unable to hear it through the noise Angel was probably still making.

At the thought of Angel's agony, Wesley hurried his steps, catching a bus just as it was about to leave. At least now, it wouldn't be long until they could undo the spell and give Angel some relief from the pain.

He stepped off the bus and rounded the corner, only to find the street full of fire trucks. Heart in his mouth, he started running, looking up to their apartment. Smoke was pouring out of the broken windows.

Someone caught his arm and forced him to a halt.

"There you are," Detective Lockley said. "What the hell have you done to this place? The bomb squad can't get here. I damn nearly couldn't myself, until I went with the fire team."

"Bomb squad?" Wesley said. "There was a bomb? Where's Gunn?"

"Your friend?" she asked. "He was injured. The ambulance took him."

Gunn injured – not dead, but injured. By a bomb. Oh, God.. "Badly?"

"He was unconscious, but I think he'll be all right."

He nodded. "What hospital?"

"USC. Pryce – Angel's still in there."

That gave him pause. "Alive?"

"As alive as he can be." Detective Lockley looked up at the smoke-filled windows. "I asked the kid – he had the sense to gag him before the ambulance came. I can keep him out of this, but only if you get me up there."

Wesley nodded and took the detective's hand, dragging her with him up the stairs. It took him a while to process everything she'd said, and so they were already on the first floor when he asked, "Kid?"

"You know, the Asian kid. Whatever his name is. He claimed your friend had called him and when he got here, the place was on fire. I sent him off with the ambulance, figured he'd be more use there."

"Chen Li?" Wesley didn't know why Gunn would call Li, but all things considered, he was happy he had. At least there would be someone with Gunn, even if it wasn't him.

They got inside, and Wesley stared mutely at the mayhem that had been his apartment. The living room wasn't too bad – singed around the edges, and one corner being sprayed with foam by a fireman, but mostly intact. But he caught a glimpse of the kitchen, and it was all blown out. So much for the prophecies of Aberjian. They were all gone now.

No.

No, damn it, because that made no sense. That was what they wanted him to think – that the scrolls had been burned down along with the kitchen, so he wouldn't look for them. But there was only one group of people who would put a bomb in his home, and they wanted those prophecies as much as he did.

They couldn't get there themselves, of course. But to hire an assassin or a demon of some sort... He had been foolish. The protective spells were all wrong.

"Okay, I found him," Lockley said in his ear. "He seems no worse off than before. Now, can you get the damn spell off the place?"

"Right," he said absent-mindedly. "As long as you help get it on me."

"What?"

He dug through his pocket until he found a pen. "Come on."

They both went out into the hall, and he nodded at the chalk markings over the door, handing Lockley the pen. "Draw them on me."

"You're kidding?"

"Do I look like I'm kidding?"

She took the pen and slowly drew each mark on his arm, glancing at the wall from time to time to make sure she got them right. He compared the two spells and, finding them identical, intoned the necessary words. Then he reached up and wiped the chalk marks away from over the door.

"There," he said. "You should be able to come and go as you want, now."

Leaving her there, he went into the bedroom. Angel was lying on the bed, looking like a gangster from a bad Western movie with his face all bound up in a clumsy gag. But he seemed unaware of his new predicament, and at least he was quiet, so Wes left him be. Instead, he walked over to the desk, opened the bottom drawer and took out a gun, loading it slowly and awkwardly before putting it in his pocket.

"Take care of Angel," he told Lockley as he returned to the hall.

She jumped, as if she had forgotten he was there. "I will. Are you going to the hospital?"

The weight of the gun lay heavy on his chest. "To begin with."

It was strange, really. Wolfram & Hart had become such a fixture in his life that actually going in there felt foreign and familiar at once. Unlike Gunn, he marched in the front door and searched out the office of Lindsey McDonald. He was tired of the sneaky business.

Lindsey was alone in his office, which all things considered was probably a blessing.

"Wesley," he said, standing. "Why are you..."

"I want the scroll," Wes said.

"Scroll?" Lindsey asked, his hand sneaking in under the desk.

"Scroll of Aberjian." Wes took out the gun and pointed it at Lindsey. "Please don't press that button. I will shoot."

Lindsey's hand stilled. "We don't have the scroll of Aberjian. You stole it from us."

"And you stole it back. Obviously, I don't know that you personally have it, but right now, I don't care. I intend to hold you personally responsible for everything that goes on around here. You came to us, pleading us to help you, so I know that there is a human being in there." He cocked the gun. "And that human is going to suffer."

Lindsey's hand was sneaking back under the desk. "If you think anything you threaten me with is going to force me to talk..."

"You're missing the point," Wes said. He fired the gun. Lindsey's hand fell limply down, and he clutched his arm, staring at Wes wide-eyed. "Gunn's at the hospital. Angel's in torment. I'm not going to force you to talk. I'm simply going to shoot you, and keep shooting you, until you give me the scroll. If you don't, I may kill you."

He took a step closer, gun still firmly pointed at Lindsey. "I'm a very good shot. A couple of inches closer each time... Do you know how long it takes for a man to die of a punctured lung? I may empty my clip before I even get to the heart."

"You're crazy," Lindsey said. There was something oddly relaxed about him, and his eyes were fixed on the door behind Wes.

"Perhaps I am. You pushed that button, didn't you?" Wes fired again, a bit higher this time, so that the bullet hit the shoulder. He didn't want to risk injuring Lindsey's hand before he had the scroll, and it was still firmly clutched around his right arm. "Bad move. Still, see if anyone comes. I very much doubt it." He angled his hand quickly to show the pen marks on his arms, and then angled it right back. "Scroll?"

"I don't have it."

Wes tutted and moved to fire again.

"Okay!" Lindsey said, letting go of his arm to raise his hand in defeat. "I got it. Jesus!"

He opened his desk and started rummaging about, and Wes held ready in case he was trying the old weapon-in-the-drawer trick. But when Lindsey's blood-stained hand appeared again, it was holding the scroll. So the lawyer had some sense at least.

"Push it forward," Wes ordered.

Lindsey obliged, and Wes took a step forward. There he hesitated. Taking the scroll would mean putting the gun down, and he certainly didn't trust Lindsey not to take advantage of that situation.

There was really just one thing to do. He fired the gun again.

Lindsey gave a muffled cry and stared at his left arm, now bleeding as profusely as the right. He sat down heavily, as if his legs wouldn't carry him – which was probably the case.

"Couldn't have you trying to kill me," Wes said, putting the gun back inside his pocket. He took the scroll from Lindsey's desk – it was bloodied, but not so badly that he wouldn't be able to read its contents – and retreated towards the door.

The spell still worked perfectly, he found as he stepped out of the office and no one looked tice at him as he walked out of Wolfram & Hart with their valuable possession in his hand. He would have expected his heart to race, his mind to be in a flurry of wild emotions. Instead he felt nothing at all except a vague sense of worry.

He could have sworn that, for the split second before Wes closed the office door, Lindsey McDonald had been smiling.


	14. Bedside Manners

The first thing Gunn noticed was the noise: a high-pitched whine that got increasingly annoying the more he woke up. He couldn't tell what the hell it was. Not a phone signal or alarm clock or any of those things that tended to wake you up.

Whatever it was, it really made his headache worse. He probably shouldn't have been drinking so much last... When had he been drinking? He couldn't remember drinking.

Something was definitely wrong, though. He had a hard time breathing, for one thing, like he had a cold, but he couldn't remember a cold either. And his eyes wouldn't open. He tried harder still and managed to crack open an eyelid, if just barely. It hurt really bad and his eyelashes blurred his vision, but he could see that the room he was in had white walls and some tubes and shit hooked up next to his bed.

A hospital.

That was when it all came back to him – the explosion, the strange crystal, Angel screaming his lungs out in the bedroom.

"Jesus," he breathed to himself.

Something stirred next to him. Moving his head a little, he saw Wesley leaning forward in a chair. "Gunn? You're awake?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Kind of wish I wasn't." He grimaced. "Can't someone turn off that noise?"

"What noise?"

"You know. That 'hmmmmm' – that noise."

Wesley was silent for a moment, and then said, "I think that might be your ears ringing."

Right. Explosion. Jesus, on top of everything else, that was really what they needed. Even through eyelashes, he could tell that there was something different about Wesley, but he didn't know what. He looked shabby and tired, but then, he'd been looking like that a lot lately.

"How's Angel?" he asked.

"How's Angel?" Wesley repeated like he couldn't believe the question. "He's... better."

"Got the spell fixed, huh? That rocks."

Wesley chuckled, though there was no humour in it. "Yes, I suppose it does."

Gunn licked his dry, swollen lips. "So... how am I?"

"What?"

"The funeral mood's got to be about something. If it's not Angel, I'm thinking it's me." The weird part was, he didn't feel all that bad. Now that he was awake, he knew the stuffiness in his nose probably meant it was broken, and his entire face felt about two sizes too small. And there was something definitely wrong with his arm, and most of him hurt, but it was a manageable pain, not the excruciating kind he would have expected if he'd been blown to pieces. Of course, he'd seen people dying who swore they didn't feel a thing, so maybe he was worse off than he knew.

Wesley's cold hand closed firmly around Gunn's. "You've taken a good beating, but apparently there are no internal injuries and very few broken bones. Your arm took the worst of it."

Gunn tried to lift his arm to take a look, but it was on his right, and he still hadn't managed to open that eye. "But it's gonna be okay, right?"

"The doctors sounded fairly positive about that, yes."

Fairly positive could mean just about anything. He figured anything would sound fairly positive compared to, say, not having an arm, and he would have raised his eyebrows if he had thought his face could bear the strain. Perhaps the pain in his face was the reason he didn't ask for details. Couldn't be too bad anyway. No doctor he'd known had ever tried to sweeten bad news for him; maybe they saved that kind of shit for people who could afford to get pissed. Of course, there was a risk that Wesley would try to sweeten it – but Gunn didn't think he would. Not about something like this. "And my eyes?"

"You have a ruptured cornea – as I understand it, it might be fine, but there's also a possibility that you might need a transplant."

He frowned, but quickly stopped doing that, since it caused a pulling sensation in what he suspected to be stitches. "I'm gonna have a dead guy's eye?"

"A tiny piece of a dead guy's eye." He couldn't see Wesley, but the smug dryness came through even in speech, and he gave Wesley's hand a weak punch.

"Cut it – hey, " he added as a thought struck him. "Singular."

"Cut it singular?"

"Eye singular. So what's wrong with the other one?"

"There's nothing wrong with the other one."

He opened his eye just to see if Wesley was shitting him, but he seemed honest enough. "It hurts."

"Oh. That."

"Yeah, that."

Wesley sighed. "You're sporting a shiner. That's all."

"Just a shiner, huh?" He closed his eye again. "Was a bit worried there for a while." Although he tried to sound flippant, he was deeply relieved. The view out of the tiny crack of one bruised eye was pretty limited, and he would have hated for it to go on for any length of time.

"As I said, you took quite a beating. Many bruises and cuts." Long, cold fingers traced his face – it hurt, but it felt good at the same time. "I think you may scar."

That didn't surprise him. The way his face felt, he figured he was lucky to have any skin left at all. "Yeah, but we're talking the sexy, Seal kind of scars, not the disfiguring Frankenstein kind, right?"

"Frankenstein was the inventor," Wesley said. "And I hardly think it will be as visible as Seal's."

"Aw, now you're disappointing me," he teased, expecting Wesley to laugh, but the laughter never came. There was something wrong – really, seriously wrong, but if it wasn't him, and wasn't Angel, what was it? The apartment? But it had been a shitty apartment anyway, and even if Wesley wasn't used to living in basements and hallways, Gunn doubted he would be so morose over a lost place to live. No, morose was the wrong word. Bleak. Wesley was bleak, and not knowing why scared him more than any injuries could. "Wes..."

Wesley stood up abruptly. "I have to go."

"What? Why?" Gunn opened his eye, but Wesley had already proceeded to the other side of the bed, and he had to roll over on his side to see what was going on. The movement made his head pound worse, and he felt a wave of nausea rise up. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

Wesley stopped, glancing out the window into the corridor before he grabbed a bedpan and held it up for Gunn to use. "Go ahead."

Gunn tried to fight the nausea, but that made his nose hurt worse, and he finally threw up into the bedpan, the pain in his skull causing him to see flashes of light and bright swirly colours.

"Left out the concussion, huh?" he said weakly.

"Mr. Pryce?" a man said from the corridor. "Could we have a word with you?"

Wesley put down the bedpan and stood up, his hand resting briefly on Gunn's shoulder before he left. "Of course."

Gunn tried to see what was going on, but pain still clouded his vision. Still, that voice had told him enough – he didn't need to see a uniform and a badge to recognize a cop.

What the hell had Wesley gotten himself into?

Lockley closed the door to her flat and gave Wes a long, hard look. "You shot that guy three times."

Wes took off his jacket and hung it on a hook, avoiding Lockley's gaze. "If this is an interrogation, shouldn't I have a lawyer?"

"Gee, let me think," she said sarcastically. "No, because you shot your lawyer."

"That's not an admission I want to make at this time. And he's not my lawyer."

Kate exhaled through her nose and shook her head a couple of times before saying, "This is not an interrogation. If it was, I would have kept you in the interrogation room instead of hauling you home with me. This is me being fucking pissed off at you, Pryce. You shot that guy, and you made me an accomplice with those stupid marks."

"I doubt any officer of the law would arrest you for scribbling runes on a man's forearm," he said, proceeding inside.

"You think this is a joke? Attempted murder, Pryce!"

"Now, that I don't understand," he said. The flat was quiet, which he supposed was a good sign. "You'd have to be a very poor shot indeed to attempt murder and shoot a man in both arms."

He opened the door to the guest room and found Angel lying on the bed in the same position as before. At least there were no more thrashings.

"So what was it, then?" Lockley asked from the doorway. "Torture? Payback?"

Even though he'd done it before, Wes leaned down and gave Angel a quick, inexpert examination. Angel's eyes reacted to light, which indicated that he saw something – it simply wasn't them. He didn't react to sounds, and as for touch, it was anybody's guess. Wes made sure to touch him anyway, just in case this was nothing more than a prolonged awakening after an exhausting nightmare.

"Have you tried feeding him?"

"I don't like McDonald any more than you do, but he could be facing permanent damage here."

"Good."

"And you could be facing jail time."

Wes stood up and faced her. "Have you tried feeding him?" he repeated.

She stared at him, and finally shook her head. "I bought some bags of blood, but I haven't been home to feed him. They're still in my bag."

"Then can you go get them? Please?"

She shrugged and left the room, muttering, "You know, I'd really prefer it if you weren't polite along with the creepy."

He waited for her return, hoping that the feeding would tell them more about Angel's condition. Would he even be able to eat? If not, they might be forced to kill him – even if Angel was no longer in pain, they couldn't spend their time force-feeding a catatonic vampire. He still hadn't found a new flat, and he certainly wouldn't bring Angel to sleep in the shelter as he had done for the past few nights. As for Lockley, it was only a matter of time before she tired of the arrangement and threw Angel out or staked him herself – though considering how she spoke of him, she had given the vampire remarkable comfort. It was a very nice guest room, and the bed had clean sheets. Wes was even ready to wager that the pillow had been fluffed.

"Here," Lockley said, returning to the room with a bag of blood that she handed to Wes. Then she stepped back, obviously ready to let him handle the actual feeding. Unfortunately, he still needed her.

"Come here," he told her, nodding towards the head of the bed. "Hold him up while I feed him."

She did as she was told, and Wes slowly poured it into Angel's mouth. At first there was nothing, just the mouth filling up with blood, and then, just as he stopped pouring so the blood wouldn't spill out onto the sheets, Angel swallowed. Wes started pouring again, and the vampire kept swallowing, faster and faster, clearly eager to still his thirst. He even moved his hand a little as if trying to hurry the procedure, though it never reached as far as the bag, and he frowned hard in concentration.

"Weird," Lockley said. "It feels kind of like watching someone breastfeed."

Wes smiled. He didn't know about breastfeeding, but it did feel like a good omen.

When the bag was empty, Kate lowered Angel's head again, and he lay down, as still and untouchable as before. The blood staining his lips was the only sign that he had moved at all. For a moment, they both hovered over him, waiting.

"Angel?" Lockley asked, her voice surprisingly soft. Angel didn't react. She waited a while longer, and then shrugged. "Well, at least we know he's in there."

When she stood up, her eyes were cold again. "Now, about you shooting that guy..."

"It's not a topic I wish to discuss," Wes said, leaving the room to discard the empty blood bag.

Someone knocked on the door, and before Gunn had time to turn around, a voice said, "How're you doing, big brother?"

Gunn smiled. "Alonna!" As he turned his head, the greeting became a startled curse as his sister came into view.

"Is that any way to say hello?" she asked, approaching the bed.

"You..." Staring was hard with the shiner, but Gunn gave it his best shot. "Your hair..."

Alonna drew her fingers through the short-cropped, bleached curls. "Yeah, I changed my looks a bit. Figured I'd make it harder for people to recognize me."

"I barely recognized you," he said. "You look so... different."

"Sort of the point, yeah. You don't like it."

"I... yeah, I do." It was more than just the hair; her clothes were different too. She was wearing a tight, sleeveless, turtle-neck top with some sort of blue and grey pattern, and yellow pants so bright, looking at them forced him to blink. It looked kind of hot, but it wasn't Alonna. She looked more ready for the beach than for a fight. "You're gonna attract vampires looking like that."

"Just vampires?" she asked with a shrug. "Well, I guess it'll come useful next time we're on a hunt."

"You can't go hunting in that," he said sharply. "Not on our streets." If she wore a flashy outfit like that, people would assume she had money, and that assumption could get her killed faster than any vampire.

"I know," she said, sounding irritated. "Jeez, I just got off the plane an hour ago. I'll go change later."

"Sorry," he said, ashamed that he'd snapped at her. Alonna knew how to handle herself, that hadn't changed just because she'd spent a month drinking tea and casting spells, or whatever it was people did in English witch covens. "You look great."

She didn't reply, but the sad look on her face as she sat down on the rickety chair by his bed told him clearer than words that however he looked, "great" wasn't it.

He self-consciously touched the stitches and bandages on his face, wondering how bad they looked. "How do you like the patchwork they've done on me?"

She looked away for a moment; that frightened him.

"Oh, come on, it can't be that bad."

"Is it true you could have lost an eye?" she asked.

"In a sense," he replied, suddenly feeling very tired.

"In what sense?"

"In the sense that I could have lost my life. I'm mostly glad that didn't happen."

She sighed and stroked his head with fingers that were softer than he remembered. "Glad to see you've gotten your priorities straight."

It was an echo of their old argument, and his voice sharpened when he answered, "It wasn't a vamp's nest, Alonna. I didn't go out to hunt this; it was a bomb in my fucking kitchen."

She got an odd expression. "Wasn't it Wesley's kitchen?"

"Uh... yeah..." He didn't know how to get out of this. It had just slipped out, and he could think of no excuse that would salvage the situation. In all honesty, he wasn't sure he wanted an excuse. He'd never been in the business of lying to his sister.

The truth, then, and God in heaven help him. "Thing is, Wesley and I... we're sort of... together."

She didn't say anything. The silence stretched out, and he started to wonder if he should prompt her a little, maybe crack a joke or something. It was an inappropriate time for joking, but then at least she could tell him off for that.

But before he could speak up, she did. "Romantically?"

The word annoyed him. It sounded like a schoolboy crush, or dinner and a movie. "When was the last time anything in our lives was romantic?"

"You know what I mean." Her voice was flat – it was impossible to tell if she was upset, or amused, or what. Face all blank too.

"Yeah. And yeah, we are."

She looked down and laughed a little. "Gotta admit, didn't see that coming. Him, yeah. Jesus, it was pretty obvious from the start that he wasn't just hanging around for your fighting skills. But you..." She shook her head. "Is it just... I mean... how long?"

"Since he got Angel out. More or less."

Her chin fell down. "You and him? Since before I left?"

"Yeah."

"And he... Have there been others?"

"No. Alonna..." He took her hand in a firm grip. "I would have told you. Maybe not right away, but I would have."

"So it's just Wesley."

Was it? When asked like that, he couldn't give a simple yes or no answer. He'd thought about it, of course, wondered what had meant more - the girlfriends he'd had, or the guys he'd looked at without even thinking about what it meant. It wasn't a fair comparison. He couldn't make it into all women but Wesley, or men and women and Wesley, and definitely not all men and Wesley. No matter what he tried to call himself, it felt like a lie. Or an approximation – and if that wasn't a Wesley type of word, he didn't know what was.

"I guess it's like those cubes," he said.

"What cubes?"

"You know - the ones with coloured squares that you're supposed to twist and turn. And sometimes you make a side fit so it's all the same colours, but hell if you can ever make all of them fit."

She looked at him as if he was crazier than Angel. "Your point being?"

"With people, it's like... You can think they're gorgeous, or you can like having sex with them, or you can like them, love them even, and I guess there are about a dozen other things that could match too."

"And Wesley's the finished cube?"

He snorts at that. "No way. He's an uptight white guy who keeps pet vampires and messes with magic. But I ain't ever met someone I liked that much in that many ways." He went quiet, suddenly feeling embarrassed to have said so much, even to Alonna.

All she said was, "Huh." Even with his vision still mostly blurred, he could tell that her gaze was fixed on him, as if she expected him to change right in front of her eyes.

"You okay with this?" he asked.

She gave it some thought. "If I say 'no', next time something like this happens you're not even gonna tell me, are you? I don't mean right away – I mean ever."

His heart sank. "So it's 'no' then."

"It's more of an 'I don't know.' I thought I knew you – what you wanted, what you were capable of. Seems like I don't. That's not okay."

"You do know me," he said. No one knew him better than Alonna, even if she'd missed that one detail. Well, that one big honking clue about his life, but then, he hadn't known it himself either.

"I thought you were trying to die. That you were hanging with Wes because you thought he could show you to the action."

He had to smile at that. "Well, in a way..."

"You were jumping to get into his pants. That's almost..."

"Anti-climactic?" he suggested.

"To say the least."

He had to smile at that. All these changes, and still Alonna's top priority was to nag him about staying alive. "And the man-on-man stuff? That doesn't bother you?"

"Gunn, please," she said sharply. "I'm trying not to think about the man-on-man stuff."

He flinched, which hurt almost as much as her words. "Oh."

"I'll... get used to it, okay? I got used to Wesley being there, I can get used to him... and you..." She took a deep breath. "Okay. Yeah. It's gonna take a while."

"I know you don't even like Wes..." he started.

She shrugged, and even smiled a little. "He's okay. He knows who's in charge."

"You?" Gunn suggested.

The smile widened to a grin. "Damn right. Where is he, anyway? I'd have thought he'd be glued to your side."

So had Gunn – but Wes hadn't returned, and unless he had severely overestimated his own importance, that meant something bad was going on. "The cops took him away."

"Cops? Why?"

"I don't know why." He fumbled for her hand and found it, squeezing it hard. "Can you find out for me?"

"You bet," she said, rising from the chair, ready to head out the door. He held her back.

"Wait. There's something else. The guys... Rondell in particular. I don't know where I stand with them right now. Could you find out?"

"They know?"

He nodded silently.

"Then I don't have to find out where you stand, 'cause you're standing in a heap of trouble."

"Tell me about it. I think Rondell will want to take over – it'll probably be him. I just don't want it all blowing up in my face before I'm fit to handle it."

"One explosion's enough, huh?" She sat back down and thought for a while. "I gotta say... even if you could make things better with them, you're not gonna be ready to fight for a long time, bro. Not to mention that agency you and Wesley have going tends to keep you busy."

"So what are you saying?" he asked with heat. He'd have thought he could count on her support in this at least, and he hated to admit that what she said made a lot of sense. "I should just give up and let Rondell take over?"

"Uh-uh." There was an odd note in her voice, one that usually came before a grand plan of vamp annihilation. "That's not what I'm saying at all."

Funny, all these weeks away from home, and that dank old basement didn't just look the same – it smelled the same too. She saw George standing guard by the stairs, holding the axe awkwardly pinned under his elbow as he fumbled with a cigarette, and she headed over to him, smiling to herself at the familiar sight.

"Hey, hey," she told him. "Don't destroy the sweet scent of mildew for me – it's been too long already since I last smelled it."

The axe came clattering to the ground as George spun around. "Alonna! Damn, look at you, girl!"

Alonna smiled and spread her arms, giving him a better view. She'd gotten her clothes changed, as she'd promised Gunn, but even if the new outfit was a better match for the neighborhood, it was still very much a new outfit – and of course, the hairdo was pretty obvious.

"New and improved," she said. "Can't say the same about you, though. What if I'd been a vampire?"

"It only turned dark, like, ten minutes ago," he protested. "Like a vampire would show up that fast."

"As I heard it, last time they showed up in broad daylight." She walked past him into the basement, looking around to see if the rest of the security measures worked better. The traps still seemed to be rigged the way they were when she left, and she carefully avoided stepping on the wrong stones in the stairs.

"You know about that?" George asked, following her.

"They have telephones in England," she pointed out. "I called Gunn."

"Oh." He hesitated for a moment and then asked, "About Gunn... Has he..."

She cut him off. This was a discussion she wanted to have with the whole gang. "What's the plan for tonight?"

"Uh... one of the girls saw a vampire down by the drive-in yesterday. We're gonna check it out."

"One vampire?" Yeah, all the security measures seemed to be in place. A mighty fortress was their smelly cellar, and it felt great to be home. "That doesn't take all of us. We should split up. For one vamp, I think we could risk it – let the rest whip up some food."

They were down in the basement now, and the people sitting around all looked up, their faces showing different variations on surprise at seeing her. Rondell had been sitting on a mattress, but now he got up, smiling at her. "Well, would you look at what the cat dragged in."

She hugged him tight, amazed at how much she'd missed them all. No more funky incense or things floating about in the kitchen, no more rain anytime she stepped out the door. No more weird accents she could barely understand. Just a bunch of people she'd die for if she had to, four concrete walls and a floor. So it didn't have an oak finish. Who cared?

"Good to see the place hasn't been falling apart completely without me," she said.

"Came close," he said, watching her intently. It was clear he was going to put the cards on the table right away. She appreciated that. "You heard about Gunn?"

"That he got himself blown up?" she asked, grateful for the opportunity to remind them what the major issues were. "Yeah, I heard."

"Well, that and... the rest."

"He's gone fag on us," James piped up from further into the room.

Rondell threw him a murderous look, but didn't argue. None of them could – they wouldn't even meet Alonna's gaze. She nodded slowly. "Yeah... gotta be a bitch. Still, if any of you boys need to defend your virtue, I'll be right there helping out."

"Oh, come on, Alonna," Rondell argued. "Don't be like that."

"Don't be like what?" she asked. "Don't be standing up for my brother? Don't be reminding you that he's saved all of your collective asses at least once? Hell, even Wesley's been helping us out from some tight spots."

"Nobody's saying they haven't," Rondell said, crossing his arms. "But you ain't seen Gunn lately. He's changed. And he's hardly ever around anymore."

Alonna waited. She knew what was coming, but she sure as hell wasn't going to speed it up.

"I think we need someone else to take charge."

She forced herself to smile. "Well, you're lucky, then, that I got back when I did."

She could tell exactly when the message got through to all of them. First Rondell's eyes widened – he'd always been quick on the uptake. Then gasps and mutters indicated that the others were catching up. A couple still stood there oblivious, waiting to be clued in.

"You want to take over," Rondell said, his voice filled with wonder.

"Well, I'm not looking to be the ruling monarch of this place, but yeah. It's my gang as much as Gunn's."

That hadn't always been true. During the first few years, Gunn had been the one making a name for himself, drawing people in. She'd been the hanger-on, the protectee, and then the bait. But those days were long past – she just needed to give the rest of them the chance to figure that out too.

George was already smiling. James's eyes darted from her to Rondell – in theory, everyone would make up their own minds, but in reality, a lot depended on Rondell's answer. Being a girl, she had a disadvantage over Gunn when it came to claiming authority, but she also had a pretty big advantage. Rondell liked her – if they'd lived in one of those dopey high school movies, he would have asked her to the prom.

"Gunn knows about this?" he finally asked.

That almost made her laugh. They were kicking Gunn out, and they still worried about his opinions? "Course he does. He's my brother. I'm not gonna tar and feather him or whatever you guys were planning. And neither should you. Sooner or later you'll need him. Don't want to deal with him come the day? Fine. I'll deal with him. You deal with me. Sound okay?"

Silence met her proposal. Then Rondell smiled and nodded. "Damn, girl, it's good to have you back."

She released a breath she hadn't know she'd been holding and returned the smile. "Good to be back."

"Alonna?" That was Teresa, tentatively touching her arm. "What's up with the hair, sister?"

Alonna smiled and ran her fingers through her hair, remembering the soothing comments Brigid had made as she cut it all off. The end result had been everything the witch had promised. "Awesome, isn't it?"

Gunn had expected Wesley to come pick him up, but when he stepped out into the hospital corridor, it was Lockley who came up to him.

"You're my welcoming committee?" he asked. "Didn't figure you for the type."

"I'm looking for Pryce, actually," she said. "I thought he'd be here."

"Yeah, so did I," he said, looking down the corridor in both directions to try and find Wesley. Since everything was still fuzzy on his right, that meant turning his head around like an owl. Still no Wesley. That alarmed him. He could think of few things that would stop Wesley from bringing him home from the hospital, except for things pale and bitey in nature. Maybe he'd been arrested – he'd been awful quiet about what the cops had been doing there, no matter how hard Gunn pumped him about it, and Alonna hadn't found anything out. But if the cops had taken Wesley, why would Lockley come here to ask about him? She was a cop; she'd know things like that.

"If it's me he's trying to avoid, you can tell him there's no need," Lockley said. "McDonald dropped the charges."

It came so unexpectedly, all he could think of asking was, "What charges?"

"The works. Attempted murder, assault, breaking and entering..." She finally seemed to catch up with what he meant and silenced, wetting her lip with her tongue. "You didn't know."

Gunn shook his head, dumbfounded. Wesley had tried to kill Lindsey McDonald? He didn't have to ask why, not with all the stitches still aching on his skin, but he just couldn't see it. Wesley didn't get mad, not like that. Not get pissed and beat someone up mad. He was cold in a fight, even when he made mistakes or grew tired. Overthinking, that was his problem most of the time. Calculating to the point where he couldn't just act on something. The thought of him doing something rash in the heat of the moment was... not Wesley.

"He was shot," Lockley continued when Gunn didn't answer. "Three times. Twice in the right arm, once in the left. From what I understand, the poor bastard's worse off than you." She shook her head slowly. "I get why he did it, of course, but I would've felt a whole lot better if he'd just taken a fist to the guy's face like a normal person."

"He shot him in the arms," Gunn repeated, trying to make sense of it all. "On purpose?"

"You'd have to be a really crappy shot to hit someone in both arms by mistake," she pointed out.

True. And Wes was nothing if not a good shot – it was one of the few areas where he could be guaranteed to get a fairly good hit every time, regardless of how jittery or off his game he might be. There was no way Wes would aim to kill someone and hit even one of his arms, much less two.

Which meant it wasn't attempted murder, and that would've comforted Gunn so much more if it didn't also mean that what it was, was torture. And that wasn't something he wanted to believe of Wes, not ever. Trouble was, something like that he could see. A shiver went down his spine. Jesus Christ, what had he gotten himself into?

Lockley's expression changed, and she nodded down the corridor behind Gunn. "Speak of the devil."

Gunn turned, but to his right, which meant he had to spin almost a full 180 before Wes came in clear view.

Just like last time, Wes looked like hell warmed over, but he smiled when he saw the two of them in the corridor. Gunn smiled back, trying to ignore the part of the brain that kept showing him Wes shooting Lindsey in cold blood. This wasn't the place to start an argument.

"So sorry I'm late," Wes said as he came up to them, placing his hand on GUnn's upper arm in a sign of greeting. "How do you feel?"

"Dizzy," Gunn said. "Itchy. Mostly just fine, though." He was actually amazed at how little things hurt, considering the number of stitches they'd put in him. As long as he didn't try to use his hand or make grimaces, he could almost forget they were in there.

"Good to hear it," Wes said. Turning to Lockley, he added, "I went to see a man about a flat. It looks like present arrangements won't be needed much longer."

She stared at him. "A flat what?"

"Apartment," Gunn said, and wasn't that weird, that he could translate from England-English fluently now, and he'd never even been out of LA.

"You have a place?" Lockley sounded relieved, and she even smiled a bit. "That's great!"

"Uh, I don't have a place quite yet," Wes warned. "I still have to see someone else, and then he will send me somewhere else yet, apparently. But my source seemed confident that it's only a matter of days."

This dimmed Lockley's enthusiasm somewhat, and Gunn felt a bit suspicious. Wes sounded way too evasive – and his "sources" were usually of the supernatural kind. He really hoped they weren't going to live in some haunted mansion. No matter how good the mansion-bit would be, it couldn't compensate for the haunting bit. He even thought he'd rather go back to their old apartment, bombed or not. It wasn't as if he was used to high standards.

"So, you've been staying at Lockley's place?" he asked. It occurred to him that speaking about Lockley in third person was a bit rude, and he added to her, "Sorry, your place?"

"Oh, no," Wes said. "I've been sleeping in Anne's office, mostly. No, just Angel."

"Angel? But he has a place." Which, coming to think of it, weirded this whole situation up even more – he was pretty sure Angel would have been glad to have Wes stay there. Well, okay, not glad, but not grumpy about it either. Unless, of course, Wes had been holding out on him. "He's not okay, is he?"

Lockley's eyebrows flew up. "What, you haven't told him?"

"Told me what?" He looked sharply at Wes. "You said he was okay."

Wes sighed. "I said he was better, which he is. He's simply..."

"Catatonic," Lockley said.

"He's not catatonic."

"He's just lying there," Lockley told Gunn, "totally unresponsive to anything except food. And as it turned out, he hadn't been paying his bills for quite a while before this shit happened, so I'm keeping him at my place."

"Jesus." And no one had told him. Sure, there wasn't a whole lot he could have done, lying on his back in a hospital bed, but the thought of all this going on while he wasn't looking was just a bit too much. He shook off Wes's hand and stalked down the corridor, knowing that if he didn't get out of there really fast, he'd soon start yelling so loud he'd wake up the coma patients.

He found a parking lot with a whole bunch of cars but no people, and he sat down on the ground, his back to the brick wall. The air was hot and smelled of petrol, but he still took deep breaths, ignoring the ache in his broken nose.

He should have stayed in his basement. At least there the rules were simple. Search for food wherever you could, kill vampires when the chance arose, and try not to die. But no, he had to get involved with a pansy-ass Englisman, and now he'd been demoted from his own gang, evil lawyers blew him up, and his own boyfriend shot people for kicks and told him lies.

Worst of all, though, there was a vampire lying lost in his delusions, and he actually gave a damn. No wonder his people didn't want him around anymore.

A shadow fell in front of him, and he knew its shape so well he didn't have to look up before telling Wes, "I'm more patched up than an old quilt. If I so much as raise my voice, I'm bound to pop some stitches."

"So don't raise your voice." Wes remained hovering over him for a moment and then sat down, slowly, as if waiting for an objection. "I should have told you about Angel. I just wanted the good news to be a bit better before I did."

"And Lindsey?" Gunn asked, finally looking up. "When were you going to tell me about him?"

Wes, looking stunned, gave no answer, which confirmed what Gunn already knew:

"You weren't."

Wes's face face became closed and guarded. "I take it Lockley did."

"She told me the charges had been dropped."

Wes blinked, the mask slipping for a brief moment. "What?"

"McDonalds dropped the charges against you."

Wes's brow furrowed. "Did she tell you why?"

Gunn shook his head and suggested, with a mix of hope and sarcastic despair: "He didn't have a case?"

Wes gave him a look that clearly stated what he thought of such a ridiculous statement.

"No, of course he did," Gunn continued. "'Cause you did it. You shot the guy three times in the arms, and you may have messed him up for life. Does that make you feel good?"

"I'm not sorry he suffered, if that's what you mean," Wes said calmly. "But that wasn't my reason. I needed the scroll of Aberjian back to try to remove the spell from Angel."

"Oh." He should have known. When had Wes done anything without good reason? Wanton destruction wasn't his thing – hell, he was the one who wouldn't even kill a demon if he considered it harmless. "I thought... I thought it was payback. For what happened to me, and to Angel."

"Well, yes, that too."

Gunn shook his head, refusing to believe the simple admission and the dispassionate way Wes said it. "No. No. You don't get to say that, you don't get to..."

"Gunn..."

"No!" Gunn raised his hands as if to ward Wes off. "I never asked you to go after anyone for me. I don't think Angel did either. Did he?"

"He wasn't in a position to ask me anything, remember?" Wes pointed out, his voice cold. "Lindsey's not an innocent victim. I did what I did to counter a slight portion of what he's put us through, and I took it no further than I had to. But if you want me to feel sorry for him..."

"Oh, who cares about him?" Gunn shouted, standing up. "This isn't about him. It's about you. About us."

Slowly, Wes stood up as well, meeting his gaze. He said nothing.

"We're supposed to be the good guys," Gunn said quietly.

"You be the good guy," Wes replied, and the hard edge was gone, making him seem younger and more bewildered than he had in a long time. "I don't think I have the energy anymore."

Neither one of them said anything after that. Gunn was still angry and upset, but he had been given pause by how tired Wes looked. He'd always known that he might lose Wesley to the fight, the way he risked losing everyone he cared about. Now it seemed he risked losing him in another way entirely – by having him turn into someone he no longer recognized.

Well, at least he knew one thing: he sure as hell wasn't going to lose him through harsh words said at an ugly-ass hospital parking lot.

He looked in both directions, but there were no people around that he could see, just row after row of cars. Wes might still freak out, of course. Not to mention that he might pop some stitches. But he was willing to take the chance, and so he very tentatively pulled Wes closer and kissed him.

It was time to go home, wherever "home" could be.


	15. Our Lady

"I love this apartment!" Gunn declared.

"Mmm." Wes was putting his books up into the book shelf and didn't pay him much mind. With some volumes too damaged by the explosion to read, the shelves had gaps - both physical and intellectual - that needed to be filled. Old Al wouldn't have everything he needed. Maybe Denver?

"Do you know what I love best about it?"

"The mice?"

Gunn frowned, sitting down on the couch. "There are mice?"

"Well, something has been making holes in the panelling. If it's not mice, I don't know what it is."

"Okay, no, not the mice."

"The leaking shower?" Wes suggested.

"Wes..."

"The demon neighbours?"

Gunn got a panicked expression. "Please tell me that you're joking."

"There's a family of Anomovics upstairs," Wes said. "They're harmless, though I wouldn't recommend socializing too closely with them. Their wedding rites alone..."

"Okay, no marrying the demons," Gunn interrupted. "I'm sure I'll get used to them. And we can fix the shower, and kill the mice, and you're completely missing the point here, Wes!"

Wes put his books down and smiled at Gunn. "And what, pray, is the point?"

"My name is on the lease."

"So's mine," Wes teased, and then amended, "Yes, all right, I know it's not the same thing. Congratulations."

Gunn scoffed. "Well, if you're used to a fancy English mansion..."

It was so unexpected Wes had to laugh. "You have the strangest ideas about the size of my family's fortune."

"What, you're not the heir of all England?"

"Of course I am. But all England is so small!" He was suddenly reminded of the school trips he had been on as a child. Unlike the Watcher excursions, he had enjoyed those. The memory brought forth something that might be called homesickness, and perhaps his voice was a smidgeon too cheerful as he continued: "Plus, there's the whole disownment issue."

The smile disappeared from Gunn's face, which made Wes regret ever saying anything. "They didn't really disown you, did they?"

"I don't know," Wes said, as calmly as he could manage. "I haven't asked them."

"You haven't even tried talking to them?"

Oh, dear God, why had he brought up this subject? "I don't have anything I want to say to them."

Gunn looked a bit sick and shook his head. "Family's important."

"Your family, maybe," Wes said, standing up.

Seeing Gunn's face, he desperately wished he'd have had the sense to keep his mouth shut.

"Listen," he said. "I'm sorry. How about we step out of this discussion before both of us have our feet so deep in our mouths that we'll never get them out again?"

Gunn's expression didn't lighten. "Don't you..."

Since Wes had no particular wish to find out how Gunn intended to end that sentence, he grabbed him instead and gave him a deep kiss.

"You kissing me to shut me up, now?" Gunn asked when he got his lips to himself again.

"Only because nothing else worked," Wes retorted.

Gunn stared at him, and then his mouth started twitching. "Damn you," he muttered. "Okay, deal. Discussion's over." He couldn't keep the smile off his face, nor could he hide it, even though he turned his head away. "Want help with those books?"

"You'd mess up the order," Wes said, carefully placing 'Olympus Antiquus et Hodiernus' on the shelf. Bloody heavy book - maybe he should put it on the bottom instead, but then he'd need to re-think his sorting. The books next to it started to slide away, and he hissed in irritation as he propped them up to prevent them from falling. "All right. But you have to put every book exactly where I say."

"Of course," Gunn said with a slight smile, joining Wes by the shelves.

As they worked, Gunn kept making pauses to look at the room, and after a while, Wes had to stop what he was doing just so he could watch Gunn's goofy smile. "You really _do_ love this place, don't you?"

"You bet."

"Mice and demons and all?"

"And the catatonic vampire in the bedroom. Yeah."

Wes would have preferred not to think about Angel. "I think he's improving. He looked at me today. At least I think he looked at me."

There was a moment's pause as neither of them said anything, and then Gunn got off the couch, grabbing Wes and kissing him hard.

"What's... mmm... that for?" Wes asked.

"For being a good guy."

There had been a time when Gunn wouldn't have considered him a good guy for caring about a vampire, but Wes didn't feel like bringing that up. Not with Gunn's hands doing such very lovely things to his skin.

* * *

Dawn was almost breaking and Alonna was getting ready for a few hours' shut-eye, when she saw a young woman approaching the headquarters. She hesitated for so long before approaching that Alonna got a really good look at her. What she saw was a pretty but unnotable black woman: medium weight and and height, neither really dark or really light, hair kind of like Alonna's had been before, but a little bit lighter. She was dressed in jeans and a top, which was simple enough, but they were new and stylish, which meant she definitely wasn't from their part of town.

The woman took a few steps closer, but then doubled back again, looking ready to bolt.

"You looking for someone?" Alonna called, taking pity on her.

"No," the woman started, looking nervous. "Well, yes, actually. Charlie Gunn. I was told he lives here?"

'Charlie'? Alonna raised her eyebrows. Who had this woman been talking to? Nobody called Gunn 'Charlie'; it had been years since anybody tried. "Well, you got bad info, then," she said. "He moved out. I'm in charge now."

"Oh. Sorry to disturb, then." She turned to leave, and then seemed to change her mind, asking, "Do you know where I can find him?"

"Sure," Alonna said, and maybe it was cruelty that made her continue: "He lives further north, with his boyfriend."

The woman looked upset. Old girlfriend, maybe? But Alonna was pretty sure she knew of all Gunn's old girlfriends.

"Boyfriend? As in..."

"As in just what you'd think, yeah," Alonna said, softer this time. "Do you know Gunn?"

"A long time ago," the woman said slowly. "I take it you do too."

"I'm his sister."

"Alonna? You're Alonna?"

So she _did_ know Gunn, it wasn't just something she was saying. "That's right. And you are?"

"I'm... Luisa."

She was lying, Alonna was sure of it. But why? If Gunn knew her under another name, he'd say so, and furthermore, this 'Luisa' person had to_ know_ he would say so. "Funny, I can't recall him ever mentioning you."

"I don't imagine he would." Luisa's eyes didn't leave Alonna for a second. It was pretty unsettling, like she knew all kinds of things she didn't tell.

"I bet he told you about _me_," she said, trying to sound flippant to hide the fact that she was prying.

"Yeah. I knew about you."

The was a long pause. Luisa didn't seem about to leave, or ask for Gunn's address, or do anything else except stare at Alonna in that creepy way.

"Anything I can do for you?" Alonna finally asked, to put a stop to the silence.

"I kind of need a place to stay."

It was an admission Alonna had heard dozens of times, in the same apologetic tone. But _this_ chick? The thought of having her around all the time, thinking God knew what, was creepy. On the other hand, it wasn't like she could leave her to be eaten by vampire.

Of course, there was always door number three: direct her to Anne. She was a bit old for it, but Anne wasn't the kind to kick out a stray just for pushing thirty. Which would have been fine if it hadn't been for the issue of curiosity - if anyone was to find out what was up with this woman, it sure as hell wasn't going to be _Anne_.

"Sure," she said. "Just one thing first... you got to breathe in my face."

Luisa gave her an incredulous look, but as she saw that Alonna wasn't kidding, she came over and did it. Her breath was warm and - fortunately - fresh. No vampire, at least.

"Okay!" Alonna said. "Come on down, meet the guys."

"The guys?" Luisa asked.

"The rest of the gang. What? You didn't think it'd just be the two of us?"

Luisa looked queasy. It struck Alonna that considering what she'd said about Gunn's boyfriend, the question might have been mistaken for a come-on. She felt more annoyed at the idea than anything else.

"It's not really a gang, is it?" Luisa asked.

"No initiation rites," Alonna said, "no violent crime, and the only ones we kill are the vampires. You do know about the vampires, right?"

Luisa nodded faintly. "Real ones, yeah?"

"Real ones," Alonna confirmed, going down the stairs.

A couple of the others were already asleep. Alonna scanned the different old mattresses and fold-up beds they'd salvaged from containers, trying to figure out where to put Luisa - or where to put herself, for that matter. Rondell caught her eye and patted to the spot behind him on the broken couch. She gave a tiny nod towards Luisa, showing him that she had to find a spot for her first.

Ah, there! A cot was still folded up against the wall. Alonna felt triumphant when she folded it down and offered it to Luisa. "Here you go."

Luisa smiled, but there was a hint of a wrinkle by her nose. Yeah, she _definitely_ hadn't been on the streets for long, this one. "Thank you."

Alonna gave her a quick nod and headed over to Rondell. Since it was so close to sunrise, she kicked off her shoes before lying down next to him. Throwing a glance over her shoulder, she noticed Luisa still staring at her, and so she took care to turn her back and lie close to Rondell.

"Put your arm around me," she murmured.

"Yeah?" He sounded surprised, but he put his arm around her without asking any more questions. She snuggled in close. It wasn't cold enough to really make it necessary, but she wanted mystery lady to see as little of her as possible. Without a blanket, this was the best she could do.

* * *

Gunn couldn't wrap his mind around the two on the stage. He kept feeling that he should do something about it - kill the big-ass demon, save the girl, something like that. Trouble was, he had no weapons, and in any case the place was full of signs that said violence wasn't permitted. The two of them weren't acting like they should have, either. The demon should have been trying to eat the girl, and the girl should scream. They definitely shouldn't be leaning in on each other all teary-eyed, singing "With a Little Help From My Friends."

"I thought I'd find you here," Wes's voice said behind him.

He smiled a little. "Yeah, well, I'm trying to figure out how I've lived all my life in LA and never knew this place existed." Turning around, he continued, "And you've been here, what? A year? You find it just like that."

"I asked," Wes said, sitting down.

"You asked for a demon karaoke bar?"

"I asked for a place to _live_, as you very well know."

"Yeah, yeah." Gunn waved that away, watching the duo on stage finish their tune. A thought struck him. "You're not going to sing _today_ though, are you? Because if you're as bad as last time, I may have to pretend I don't know you."

"Thank you," Wes said dryly. "I fully intend to let _you_ sing next time. Today, no one at all needs to sing. I already know our future."

He leaned back in the chair, looking smug. It took a while for Gunn to get what he was on about, and then it clicked.

"Those scrolls. You figured them out."

"Not all of them, but the bit about us, yes."

"So what's the news?"

"Verbatim as far as I can translate it: 'The blue leader of young and the wrong-made former onlooker will meet the blood-drinker with a soul. They shall then hold the position until the world turns once more.' "

Gunn blinked. "Huh?"

"Just giving you a taste of what translation is like," Wes said with a tight-lipped smile. "Care to untangle it, or should I?"

Well, he didn't mind playing puzzle games for a while. Sure beat listening to the music. "Blood-drinker with a soul is pretty clear. I guess I'm the leader of young..." He wasn't anymore, but he brushed that thought aside. "Why 'blue'?"

"The Majar's had a very limited vocabulary regarding colour," Wes said. "Blue can simply mean..."

"Black," Gunn filled in.

"Dark, anyway. Pitch-black is a different word. I suppose you don't qualify."

"I'm so disappointed," Gunn deadpanned. "Okay, so I'm blue, and you're a wrong-made former onlooker..." The answer came to him as he spoke. "Ex-Watcher, right?"

"Right."

"What's up with this 'wrong-made', though? Does it mean you made something that was wrong, or that you were made the wrong way, or what?"

"The latter, really," Wes said. "Defect manufacturing."

"Like a disability?" Gunn guessed. "Damn. Suddenly 'blue' seems like a downright compliment."

"Doesn't it?" Wes agreed. "The rest is tied in to the whole section about the vampire with a soul, so I'll spare you the trouble: Apparently the vampire - Angel - is going to play a major part in the Apocalypse, but not until the world has turned twice. It seems it has already turned once, and that whatever Angel's destiny is, we are to hold that position until the next time it turns."

"So that makes us - what? His stand-ins?"

"Either that, or simply his caretakers, making sure he's _there_ for the apocalypse."

Gunn contemplated that. "Well, that's good news, isn't it? I mean, it does kind of indicate that he'll snap out of it sooner or later? I mean, he can't play a major part in _anything_ by just lying on a bed, right?"

"I wouldn't count on it," Wes said, looking very tired all of a sudden. "In any case, what does the phrase 'sooner or later' mean when it comes to an unaging creature like a vampire?" He sighed, shook his head and waved for one of the waiters. "Hi, I'd like a double Scotch, please."

Gunn raised his eyes at seeing a forked tail when the waiter walked away. "This place is fucking weird."

The Host - and who would have thought there were _flaming_ demons except in the literal sense? - was coming up to their table with the duo from before in tow, and hearing what Gunn said he replied, "Ah, 'fucking' and 'weird', two of the prettier words in the English language. Are you enjoying yourselves, my little crumpets?"

"Oddly enough, yeah," Gunn said. He smiled at the girl behind the Host and after a moment's hesitation extended the smile to her demon companion as well. The girl was very clearly pregnant, and he _really_ hoped it wasn't the demon's baby.

"Good!" The Host waved for the other two to step forward. "Now, I don't usually run errands for the Powers, but since your own messenger is out of the loop for the time being, I figured they can owe me one. Jo, Kamal, these are the fellows I was telling you about. Guys, meet your new clients. Now, I have some futures to attend to. Play nice, kidlets!"

The Host left and the two others sat down at the table. Jo gave Gunn and Wes a shy, appraising look. "So you two have a... what? Research agency?"

"Something like that," Wes said, offering a handshake. Jo returned it with a tiny smile, the demon - Kamal - without any emotion showing in his face. "I'm Wes Pryce. This is my partner, Charles Gunn."

"Hi," Gunn said.

Jo reached out her hand to him as well. Gunn's own hand was still all bandaged up, but no worse than that he could return the gesture. After that, he kind of _had_ to shake with the demon.

Kamal seemed well aware of Gunn's doubts, because he said, "I assure you, I am not going to hurt you." His voice was low and surprisingly pleasant.

"Sorry," Gunn said, feeling his face heat. He'd shown his prejudice, and the gracious way the demon took it just made the whole thing worse. "I'm just used to..."

"_Fighting_ demons?" Kamal suggested.

"Well... yeah."

Jo jerked her chin up. "He's my protector."

"So, how can we assist you?" Wes interrupted, clearly doing his best to compensate for the way the conversation had started.

"It is actually your demon-fighting skills we require," Kamal said and then corrected himself: "That is to say, the know-how. I can outmatch the best of them with sheer force, but..." he shrugged.

"Sometimes sheer force won't do the trick," Wes said. "Yes. It does seem like we could help you out, there."

"So you're some champion of good?" Gunn asked, fascinated by the idea.

"You could say that," Kamal replied slowly. "My mission is to protect _her_."

He nodded towards Jo's belly, which made it pretty much impossible _not_ to look there.

"'Her' as in Jo?"

"'Her' as in my baby," Jo said with a smile and stroke a hand across her belly. "Apparently she's some powerful, benevolent Joan of Arc-thing."

Her tone of voice was derisive, but with evident tenderness.

"Cool," Gunn said.

"She's my baby. That's all that matters."

"That is not all that matters," said Kamal. His voice, which had so far been mellow, suddenly had a growl in it that sent chills up Gunn's spine. "She is the Speaker. Without her, the world will plunge into darkness and despair."

His words were followed by silence - well, not counting the demon belting out 'Blue Moon' on the stage.

"Well, then," Wes finally said. "Sounds like a worthy cause to me."

* * *

Gunn put Wes's books down on the floor and then proceeded to take a look around. He figured if and when Wes needed an extra pair of eyes to browse the pages for demons, he'd say so.

For a demon lair in an underground bunker, Kamal's place was downright cosy. There was even a freaking Buddha statuette in a corner. He was starting to feel rather jaded on the topic of demons working for the side of good, but demons looking for enlightenment? Seriously weird, in an awesome way.

"So you guys do this for a living?"

He drew his hand back from the statuette and smiled at Jo. "Yup."

"Does it pay well?"

"Depends on the circumstances," he said. Didn't take a genius to figure out why she asked. "If it's a rich client with a personal case, we can charge pretty well. Saving the world from a plunge into darkness? Totally pro bono."

She looked down fidgeting with her hands in her lap. "Thanks."

"No problem. Hey, with your pal Kamal around, we stand a pretty good chance at getting out in one piece. That's a fine work benefit if you ask me."

She laughed, but her laughter was uncomfortable. He'd taken the joke too far. After all, it wasn't _her_ job to be demon-bait - it was just something that happened to her willy-nilly.

"Sorry," he said. "Bad taste."

"No." She swallowed hard. "It just kind of freaks me out, having you two here."

O-kay. "You're chumming with Kamal, but me and Wes freak you out?"

"Kamal makes me think we can beat this," she said in a low voice. "You two..." Her voice died away, and her gaze rested briefly on Gunn's face before sliding away to Wes. Little flushes of red were forming on her cheeks.

Gunn knew that kind of half-glance, had witnessed a lot of them and been guilty of a few, but boy was it ever strange to be on the receiving end. They needed to get out more, he thought wryly. Almost a month had passed since he was blown up; gawking strangers should be old news by now. Yet another month and he'd be more or less _healed_, for crying out loud.

It struck him that she really had no idea what she was dealing with. Unless Kamal was a much more melodramatic guy than he seemed, this Tribunal thing was Jo's last chance. Fuck that up and she'd never have to worry about scars or missing limbs ever again - not for more than ten minutes. That seemed like a bleak thing to tell her, though.

He doubted she'd be much more comforted if he pointed out that Wes and he were doing pretty okay if you considered what kind of enemies they faced. As far as he was concerned, he was still moving _up_ in the world.

Someone or something started pounding on the vent that served as a door. Both Gunn and Wes rushed to their feet, but Kamal was even faster, taking position by the vent before the rest of them had even had time to start looking for weapons.

"Oh, God, not again," Jo moaned, her eyes wide with fear.

Gunn fumbled in his pockets and found a stake. He really hoped that whatever attacked them would be somewhat stakeable.

"You got anything?" he asked Wes.

Wes held up a jackknife and gave an apologetic shrug. "I thought I'd be here for the research."

"You are," Kamal barked. "Both of you. Ready?"

Without waiting for an answer, he opened the vent. The demon on the other side charged, and Kamal started pummelling it. It definitely didn't _look_ stakeable, but Gunn ran up to the fight anyway, only to find himself backhanded by Kamal so hard it made his ears ring.

"What did I tell you?"

Gunn sat back on the floor, staring up at the two big demons going at it. "What, research _now_?"

Wes handed his knife over to Jo and started leafing through his books. "Mongolian," he muttered, "or possibly Tibetian. I should have brought Hizel's compendium."

Gunn pulled himself off the floor and sat down next to Wes, glancing towards the vent. Okay, big-ass demon, kind of greenish, red thing on its forehead. He picked up a volume in dark brown leather, recognizing it as one that actually classified demons based on shit like that rather than where they were from or the names of their relatives.

Meanwhile, Kamal slammed the creature's face into the vent door a couple of times and then kicked it out, closing the vent behind it.

"It's strong," he said, putting his back to the door as the pummelling started again. "Most would have died by now. Have you found anything?"

"Getting there," Wes said, browsing the book in a frantic pace.

Gunn looked up "foreheads", figuring that it would be the most recognizable sign. Horns, ridges... bingo! Jewel. He browsed the entries, found the right demon and started reading up. "Mohra," he said out loud.

"Of course!" Wes said. "Regenerative abilities - one of those 'one weakness only' types."

"Great," Kamal said, having some difficulty holding the door back. "So what's the weakness?"

Gunn skimmed his entry, looking for key words like "kill" and "die". "Smash the jewel!" he said.

Kamal nodded and opened the door again. When the Mohra stumbled inside, Kamal punched him hard in the forehead with the side of his fist.

There was a flash of light, and the demon was gone.

"That kicked ass," Gunn said slowly.

Wes gave him a long look and said "Good job," in a tone of voice that made Gunn want to have hot, slow sex right then and there. If it hadn't been for the other two present, he'd probably have suggested it.

"Thank you," Kamal said, closing the door and returning to them. "I can tell that this collaboration will be most... Where did you get that?"

They all followed his gaze to the knife in Jo's hand. She turned it over and held it up for him to see.

"Wes gave it to me," she said.

Kamal scowled at Wes. "You armed her?"

"Well, yes," Wes said, puzzled. "I couldn't very well wield a knife while I was researching, and it seemed like she might have some use for it."

"It is my mission to keep her safe. She will not fight."

Oh boy. Gunn and Wes exchanged a glance.

"Seeing how they're all after the baby," Gunn said, "and the baby is inside her, I'm thinking it might be nice for her to have a chance to protect herself."

"Did I not make myself clear?" Kamal growled. "_I_ protect her."

"Well, that's all nice and medieval."

"Stop," Jo said. She handed the knife back to Wes and gave them both a quivering smile. "I need Kamal a lot more than I need this. Thanks anyway."

Wes nodded and folded the knife up, putting it in his pocket. "You're welcome."

Once Jo didn't have the knife anymore, Kamal calmed down considerably, and the four of them sat down together - Jo on the bed, the rest on the floor. Jo stretched out her back and sighed deeply. "Like that white-faced creep before wasn't enough."

"White-faced creep?" Wes asked.

Kamal waved it away. "I killed him. No need to look him up."

"We're in an enclosed space," Gunn said. "We're gonna need a better strategy than 'oh look, there's a demon, what's its name?' "

"Perhaps we could make a list of all the demons who have shown an interest in the baby so far," Wes suggested. "It is quite possible that they have allies who'll give it another try."

"Most of those demons, I killed," Kamal said, folding his arms. "Their kin will give me no trouble."

"They will if they show up in great numbers," Gunn pointed out. "If we could find a quicker way to off them, it might be helpful."

"Also, some demons have been known to form cross-species alliances," Wes said. "Checking for that would give us a chance to prepare ourselves."

Kamal took a moment to consider the proposition. "Very well. As you say, it is a place to start."

Jo was leaning against the wall, her eyes closed. It surprised Gunn that she could be so passive when it was ultimately her life at stake. Sure, she had the baby to consider, but Gunn had a hard time picturing Alonna in the same situation just sitting around while others fought her battles.

Then again, Alonna had been doing this since she was a kid. All this was brand new to Jo, and Kamal didn't seem inclined to let her take much responsibility. The guy was probably hundreds of years old, and if you lived underground all your life maybe it wasn't so surprising if you missed the whole women's lib thing.

Whatever else you could say about Jo, she was a very good observer, though. When it came to giving details on what the different demons had looked like, she was a lot better than Kamal and even found some of the demons without much help from Wes or Gunn.

Gunn wrote down the names and characteristics of each demon, trying to find ways they connected. After a couple of hours, the sheet was full, lines and questionmarks going between the words.

"I think that's the last one," Jo said.

"Wow." Gunn shook his head. "You've got a lot of enemies, girlie."

Wes kicked him on the shin, hard.

"That is why we need the Tribunal," Kamal said. "If I beat their champion in battle, they will protect Jo and the child for the next 18 years."

Gunn whistled. "Sounds like a pretty sweet deal. What happens if you lose?"

Jo and Kamal exchanged a glance. "Then her life is forfeit."

New sounds of pounding came from the door. Kamal jumped up and took position. Gunn picked up a book, although he was aching to take part in the battle.

Once the door opened, Gunn immediately recognized the demon as one Jo had described before. He couldn't remember the killing method, but evidently the others could, because both Wes and Jo said, "Cut off his head and burn it!"

Kamal took a firm grip around the demon's neck and pulled. The head came off like a Christmas cracker, spreading blueish blood across the floor.

"Matches," Kamal said.

Jo reached for a matchbook by the Buddha statue and tossed it to Kamal. Before he had time to light one, a bright flash of light came from the other side of the room. Gunn and Wes both stumbled back, and Wes pulled out his jackknife faster than Gunn would have thought possible.

It wasn't a new demon. It was a new _place_, a vast courtyard stretching out past the walls of the room. In the middle there were a couple of thrones, with some very grave-looking creatures sitting on them.

No doubt that this was the Tribunal. Pretty grim-looking crowd; Gunn _really_ hoped Kamal could take their guy.

* * *

They walked home in silence and were already in their own building when Gunn said, "Well, that was... weird."

Wes agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment. The only joustings he had seen before had been games played for show by people with a penchant for history, and he had never in his life seen a demon on horseback. Well, unless one counted illustrations in illuminated Bibles and such things. It had been a fascinating thing to watch Kamal fight the other champion, and he half regretted not being a Watcher anymore, since he would have loved to recount the experience for posterity. Maybe he ought to write it down never the less, make a diary of interesting cases for his own use, if not for anyone else's.

"It was a good case," he said.

"Not to mention we got out of it alive _and_ we got some money out of it," Gunn said. "_After_ I told her it was pro bono. I don't know that I would pay for something if I didn't have to."

"Gratitude is easier if you have some way to return the favour, I suppose." Wes unlocked the door and stepped inside, kicking off his shoes. He was starting to get hungry, and he realized that they had forgotten to feed Angel. Stepping into the kitchen, he took a bag of blood from the refrigerator.

"Oh, shit!" Gunn made a grimace. "I completely forgot about that!"

"Me too." Wes placed the bag inside a large mug and found a pair of scissors to cut it open. When he had emptied the bag, he fished it out and brought the mug to Angel's room.

He was rather worried what he might find, but the vampire seemed no worse off than usual. When they entered, Angel even lifted his head a little, his nostrils flaring as he made a keening noise in his throat.

Wes stopped short, stunned by what he'd seen and heard.

"Did he just...?" Gunn asked in a low voice.

Wes nodded, feeling as if a great bubble of relief and happiness had burst inside him. He smiled at Angel, who made no sign of recognizing him but reached greedily for the bag of blood when Wes came closer.

Gunn leaned towards the doorframe with a big grin on his face, watching Angel drink. "I guess now we know both his nose and his eyes work right."

"And his voice." Wes had his arm around Angel's back, but felt little of his weight: not only was Angel holding the bag on his own, he was trying to _sit_. "He's really better."

"Yeah." Gunn came closer and put his hand on Wes's shoulder. Wes leaned into the touch, half wanting to let everything go and have sex with Gunn right then and there. He couldn't very well drop Angel mid-feeding, though, and they should probably pick another room for it anyway.

Gunn seemed to be thinking the same thing, because when Angel had swallowed the last drops of blood, Gunn gave a small but urgent squeeze.

Wes nodded, slowly helping Angel lie back down.

"Well then," he said, standing up straight. "I guess that's that for today."

"For him, yeah," Gunn said, wrapping himself around Wes's back. "Not for us."

Wes smiled and turned around in the embrace, feeling certain parts of Gunn's anatomy press against him. It made him quite horny in return. "Not here," he warned.

"' Dear Abby'," Gunn said, reaching down for Wes's fly. " 'My boyfriend refuses to have sex in front of the vampire. Is this normal? Fuckless in LA.' 'Dear Fuckless in LA. Your boyfriend needs to learn that the vampire doesn't give a shit even when he's not completely catatonic. Best of luck in buying him a clue. Abby.' "

Wes had to laugh - and then he moaned as Gunn opened the zipper and started rubbing his dick. He hurried to open Gunn's fly as well, and pushed closer so that the two of them were rubbing against each other.

Leaving the room was no longer an option. Wes glanced over at Angel, who was fortunately turned against the wall. Could he hear them? At the very least, he could probably smell them.

Gunn was kissing his jaw, and Wes closed his eyes, not caring at all anymore about the where and the how of it all. They backed up until Gunn was pushed against the wall and Wes was pushing against him, bodies so close Wes could feel Gunn's every muscle moving against his - until the heat built up in his body and he could feel nothing at all except the pulses of pleasure emanating from his crotch.

This time they were lucky. It wasn't until they were finished and stood panting against the wall, kissing drops of sweat away from each other's faces, that the phone rang.

"These are _not_ office hours!" Gunn groaned as if the phone could hear him.

The rings continued. Finally Wes sighed and did up his fly, tired of hearing the noise. "Do you want me to get it?"

Gunn made a gruff noise and rolled his eyes. Wes chose to take that as a yes and went into the livingroom. He rather hoped it was a client of means.

"Pryce," he said into the phone.

"Oh, hey, Wes."

Alonna. Quite the opposite of a client of means, then. "Hello, Alonna. Is something the matter?"

"No..." Her voice suddenly sounded muffled, as if she had taken the phone away from her mouth. "I don't think so, anyway. I just need to talk to Gunn about something."

"Just a second." Wes would have expected Gunn to follow into the livingroom, out of curiosity if nothing else, but he hadn't. "Alonna's on the phone!"

That got Gunn into the room in an instant. He ran up to the phone and grabbed it from Wes's hand, giving a breathless, "Hey. Trouble?"

Wes sat down on the couch, listening to Gunn's end of the conversation.

"No," Gunn said, frowning, "never heard of her. -- Well, if it's not her real name, how am I supposed to... -- That could describe a million different people. -- No, no-one comes to mind. What's the problem, anyway, do you think she's dangerous? -- Uh-huh. Well, okay, I'll come over later today and see if I recognize her. -- Bye."

He hung up and shook his head. "I swear that peroxide has gone to her brain. She asked me to identify some woman over the phone who may or may not be an old girlfriend of mine and may or may not be using a false name."

Wes frowned. "Do you have a lot of old girlfriends Alonna doesn't know about?"

"I can't think of a single one. So I guess I'll have to get down there to see what's it all about." He sat down on the couch next to Wes and ran his finger down his lover's jaw before leaning in for a kiss. "Not quite yet, though."

* * *

Alonna had to admit that after a while, being around Luisa wasn't so bad. At least the other woman had stopped staring at her like she was some strange animal at the zoo. Another thing Alonna had noticed was that while Luisa still acted like the quarters were a dump - which, admittedly, they were - some things she said and did implied that it wasn't the first such dump she had slept in during her life. It made Alonna wonder if she should be asking a different question - not how long Luisa had been _on_ the street, but how long she had been _off_ it. She just seemed a little too streetwise to be a rookie.

In other ways, she seemed far too clueless to be anything else - though after all these years of vampires sneaking up on her, Alonna kind of appreciated a woman who announced her presence by wearing heels.

"Hey," she said, looking up from her work.

"Hi," Luisa said. "What are you doing?"

"Stakes." At Luisa's blank expression, she added, "You know, to kill vampires?"

"Oh." Luisa looked a little queasy. She sat down on the floor, feet to one side, and prodded one of the stakes with her finger.

"You ever killed a vampire?" Alonna asked, knowing what the answer would be.

"No." Luisa smiled a little. "I've run from a few."

"Running's usually where it starts."

"Have you killed a lot?"

"Not on my own. They're harder to kill than you'd think." Alonna thought about it, and shrugged. "I guess over the years there's been a few."

"You've been doing this long, huh?" There was a surprising sadness in Luisa's voice, like it was somehow her fault.

"Since I was a kid," Alonna said simply. "Course, first I was bait and Gunn would off the vamps."

"He made you _bait_?"

Alonna stared at Luisa, baffled by her sudden anger. "Yeah. He always took care of me and everything. It's not like he'd let me out there alone with no backup."

A shadow blocked the entrance. Alonna looked up and found Gunn coming down the stairs.

"Speak of the devil," she said, grateful to get out of the conversation.

The expression on Gunn's face stunned her, though. For a moment he stood frozen, and when he spoke, he pushed out the words as if he found it difficult:

"She's a vampire."

"What?" Alonna looked from Gunn to Luisa, who had tears in her eyes. "No, she's not."

Gunn lunged forward, pulling a stake from his pocket, and Alonna had to step between the two of them.

"What the hell are you _doing_?" she asked, grabbing Gunn's arms.

He struggled against her, and she had to fight with all her strength to stop him from driving the stake in. Luisa had taken a few steps back, but not far enough to be safe.

"She's a _vampire_!"

"No she isn't!" she hollered in his face. "You think I don't know a vampire when I see one? I've _tested_ her!"

Gunn's efforts faded - he was still struggling against her grip, but it was automatic, not with any real purpose. He stared at Luisa like he'd seen a ghost.

"I'm not a vampire, Charlie," Luisa said softly. "You can feel my breath if you like - Alonna has." She smiled at Alonna. "Or take my pulse."

Gunn shook his head in disbelief. "You're dead."

"Past tense," Luisa said. "I _was_ dead."

That scared Alonna more than any vampire could have. Dead? Dead how? "Who are you?" she demanded, letting go of Gunn to grab Luisa's arm. "How do you know Gunn?"

"It's mom," Gunn said, his voice all choked up.

Alonna's brain stopped working. _Mom?_

Luisa smiled at Gunn, and then at her. The tears in her eyes had started to spill over. "I didn't know how to tell you. I'm sorry."

_Mom?_ Memories came flooding up in Alonna's mind - hands tucking her in at night, a warm voice singing pop songs in the kitchen, someone showing her all the birds that had gathered on the pier.

Those were the hands. That was the voice. This was the someone - but it couldn't be. No way was Luisa more than thirty, tops.

And mom had been twenty-seven when she died.

So, not an old girlfriend at all. And the stuttered name had been a way to avoid saying...

"Lois," Alonna said out loud, watching her mother's eyes widen. "Not Luisa. Jesus..."

She was finding it hard to breathe, and sat down on the floor. It explained so much, and yet it explained nothing at all.

"Why?" she asked. "And _how_?"

Luisa - Lois - mom - sat down as well, taking her hand.

"I was brought back," she said, looking up at Gunn as she added, "To be with you."


	16. Thirst

All these years, Gunn had thought he had his mother memorized: her face, her voice, the way she moved. Now, he discovered he was wrong. Every minute he spent with her, he noticed new things, and he imprinted them on his memory, not daring to believe that he'd get to see her again.

She noticed the way he was looking at her and smiled. "Penny for your thoughts."

He said the first thing that came to mind, "You've got dimples."

They deepened. "Yes, I do." She reached out a hand and stroked his cheek. "And you're all grown up."

"Yeah," he said softly. "Weird to get used to, huh?"

"You can say that again." Her gaze drifted off over Gunn's shoulder, and he turned to follow it. Alonna was still standing with the rest of the gang some distance off, explaining the situation to them. At least he thought that was what they were talking about. The guys were looking standoffish, and he couldn't blame them. They were used to weird shit going down; just not this kind of weird shit. Teresa was chewing on her hair, Jamie on his nails, and Rondell was standing a little bit closer to Alonna than Gunn really liked.

Alonna was doing a poor job of calming them down, he thought, and then he caught a glimpse of his sister's expression and wondered if she was even _trying_ to calm them down.

"She's so beautiful," Mom said.

That wasn't the word he'd choose to describe Alonna right then, but he did his best to look beyond the stern expression to the features behind. Mom was right, of course. Alonna _was_ beautiful, it just wasn't something he paid much attention to. In this town, there were more important things to be.

"Yeah, I guess," he said. "I miss her hair, though."

"She had fantastic hair," Mom said, catching a lock of her own, her eyes still fixed on Alonna. "When did she cut it?"

"A few months ago. She got into some trouble with the cops." Gunn caught sight of his mom's sharp glance and figured that maybe this wasn't the best story to share.

"What kind of trouble?"

That tone, he _did_ remember. It used to be more than enough to make him confess a prank, once upon a time. "I think Alonna could explain it better than I can."

"Alonna doesn't talk to me the way you do."

True enough, but he felt a bit too old to go ratting on his little sister. "She didn't do anything wrong. That's really all you need to know."

Mom sat down on the stairs, remaining quiet for a while. After a long while, she said, "I'm not judging her, you know. I kind of hoped you'd both have a better life than this, that's all."

He bit back the obvious reply - that they hadn't been given much to work with. It wasn't like Mom had died on purpose. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference if she'd lived, but what the hell, she probably felt guilty for missing her chance to help. He got that.

"We're getting there," he said. "I got an apartment now, and I know that the guys have been talking to a landlord off eighth about getting a place in exchange for keeping the neighborhood safe."

"_You've_ got an apartment or your _boyfriend_ does?" Mom asked.

Gunn flinched. "You heard about that, huh?"

"Yeah." She looked down into her lap. "It wasn't exactly what I had in mind for you either."

"Kind of caught me by surprise too." He remembered the first time Wes showed up outside the basement to get that motorbike sold... though that had been a total excuse, hadn't it? "I'm glad it happened. He's good for me."

Mom pinched her lips tight together. She still wouldn't meet his gaze.

"Mom?" he asked, disturbed by her silence.

"There's more to life than an apartment, Charlie."

That seemed so out of the blue that it took a while for him to catch on. Once he did, it was even longer before he could speak. He didn't _want_ to speak, didn't want to put into words what she'd implied about him and Wes, but letting her go on believing it was even worse. "You think I'm whoring out for him?"

"What else am I supposed to think?" she asked, finally looking up. Her eyes were a lot like Alonna's, he noticed with some discomfort. The big difference being that Alonna _knew_ him.

"How about thinking I love him? 'Cause that'd be the truth."

To her credit, Mom didn't quite roll her eyes, but she came close enough to make Gunn really annoyed. "Charlie..."

For fuck's sake, nobody called him Charlie anymore. "What?"

She hesitated, and then shrugged, smiling a little as she said, "You were always such a _guy_."

"Still a guy, Mom," he said, but he could tell that she was willing to give the discussion up for now, and he was too.

"A bit taller," she teased him.

"A _lot_ taller," he said, stretching his back so their height difference became more obvious.

"And I kind of miss your hair too."

He ran his palm across his scalp. "It's practical."

"But you had such pretty little curls." Her gaze moved down from his shaven head and touched his scars for a second before she looked away. Suddenly, she seemed so very sad. She looked older than her years, too - well, older than her lived years, anyway.

"We're doing okay, Mom," Gunn said, and even though they'd been fighting a minute before and he still resented the hell out of what she'd said about Wes, he wanted to give her the bear hug he would have at eight. "We can take care of ourselves."

"Yeah, I guess," she said, sounding less than convinced.

Alonna and the others had finished their conversation and were heading back again.

"I've filled them in," Alonna said. "It's cool."

She sounded so curt Gunn felt sorry for Mom. Apparently miraculous resurrections weren't enough to make Alonna want a parent.

He wasn't sure he wanted a parent himself. He just wanted Mom.

He was still at headquarters when Anne called. She was so incoherent that it took a while for him to realize what she was talking about - but it was only a couple of seconds before her panicked voice got his pulse up and his hand reaching for a stake.

"There's just more and more of them!" she wailed. "Every time I look, there's another one, and the floor is _ruined_."

"More of what?" he asked. "Annie, girl, talk to me, more of what?"

"_Leaks_!"

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, fighting the urge to laugh. It was a serious situation all right - just not life and death serious.

"All right," he said. "Take it easy. I'm coming over."

He hung up and told Mom, "Emergency. Gotta go." In truth, he was kind of relieved to get out of there. Having his former crew _tolerating_ his presence was worse than if they'd kicked him out plain and simple.

Driving up to the shelter, he could see nothing unusual, but he only had to open the door to notice the smell and, a second later, the damp floor. Some kids - none he knew - were mopping for dear life, but looking around, he saw water flooding out from the bathrooms and dripping stains in the ceiling, and he didn't think the kids would be able to keep up with the destruction.

"Jesus," he breathed and hurried further inside. The next room was the same, and he bumped into Anne, whose eyes were red and puffy but who seemed much more composed than she'd been on the phone.

"Thank _God_!" she said. "Is Wesley with you?"

That puzzled him. What use would Wes be when it came to plumbing issues? Coming to think of it, what use would _he_ be when it came to plumbing issues, with his hand still bandaged?

"No, it's just me," he said, noticing yet another stain. "Wow, is there a single whole pipe in the building?"

"Barely," she said.

"You should turn off the water."

"Can't." One of the kids was mopping inside the bathroom and reached for the broken pipe under the sink. She snapped at him: "Hey! No touching the pipes?"

"What do you mean, 'can't'?" Gunn asked. "I could do it for you."

Anne shook her head and gave a little laugh that bordered on hysteria. "No, you can't."

"What are you talking about? Of course I can. Have you called a plumber?"

"Obviously," she said, opening the cellar door. "That's when the problems _really_ started."

They walked down to the cellar, which was already foot-deep in murky water. Anne stopped on the stairs and gestured at the motionless figure standing further inside the room with his hand frozen on the main faucet. "There he is."

Gunn stared at the plumber, who stood still as a statue, not even blinking. "What the fuck?"

"There are two more people like that in other rooms," Anne said. "So we can't really turn anything off."

Gunn nodded slowly. "I'm calling Wes."

"_Please._"

He got Wes on the phone and had only just started the explanation when Wes said, "Bog pixies!"

Okay, that was pretty amazing. "You sure?"

Wes immediately backed off and became cautious and apologetic, "No, obviously I'll have to see the scene. But it does _sound_ like bog pixies. I'll bring some different books just in case."

"Want me to pick you up?"

"No, no, there's a bus leaving in five minutes."

"All right, see you here then."

It wasn't until Gunn had hung up that it occurred to him to find it strange that Wes had apparently already learned the bus route outside their building by heart.

Gunn figured he couldn't just stand around and wait for Wes to show up, so he got his hand wrapped in a plastic bag and started mopping. It was pretty frustrating, since water kept spurting out from new places, and sewage too.

He strongly suspected that even if they managed to stop whatever the hell was going on with the pipes, the damage would be more than the shelter could afford. This could close the place down for a long time, meaning more kids on the streets - and more snacks for the vampires.

When Wes appeared with a large bag, Gunn could have kissed him, but instead he just followed Wes and Anne down to the cellar.

Wes dropped his bag at the top of the stairs and headed down, wading through knee-deep water to the plumber. He took a small flashlight from his pocket and shone it into the plumber's eyes, and then at the pipe.

"Don't touch the pipe," Anne said automatically.

"I won't," Wes assured her. He turned off the flashlight and headed back upstairs. "Bog pixies, just as I thought. It's a simple spell, but I'll need a couple of assistants and some supplies."

"Make a list and I'll put the kids on it," Anne said. She hesitated, and then said. "You know what? I think I'm going to call David. He can assist you."

"David?" Gunn said. "David Nabbit? Why would you..." Because David Nabbit would be thrilled to participate in a real spell. Because a thrilled David Nabbit might be a generous David Nabbit. "Damn it, woman, you're devious," he said with admiration.

Anne blushed. "I think he'd enjoy it, that's all."

Gunn grinned. "He probably will. Okay, go call him, see if he's available."

"Terrific," Wes murmured when Anne had left the room and he was stiffly walking up the stairs in his squelching pants. "I will have to do this spell with a _giddy_ assistant."

"Look around you," Gunn said. "If Anne wants to keep this place open, she'll need some cash. She's just trying to do something to please the one guy who might be able to provide it."

Wes stared at him. "The way you two treat David Nabbit is appalling."

And the way Wes kept babying their only stinking rich aquaintance was more than a little weird. Gunn suspected it was some kind of ex-dork to dork loyalty. "The guy's a billionaire," he pointed out. "He can spare the cash. Can you think of a better way for him to spend it?"

Wes scowled, but didn't argue. He just muttered, "I hope he has the strength to say no when he needs to."

"You could always ask him," Gunn said brightly.

Wes snorted and took a swipe at him, but Gunn had meant it. There wasn't really any better way to find out.

Gunn returned to mopping. Several of the kids headed down to the cellar to deal with the plumber - he was about as manoeuvrable as a large piece of furniture and the stairs were pretty steep. Most of the furniture had been stacked to minimise damage, but Wes took one of the remaining chairs, sitting down with his books and a list. At one point he called to Anne, "Do you have a silver bowl?"

She called back, "Are you _joking_?"

"Stupid question," he mumbled with a grimace and made a note on his list. Finally, he tore the list off the pad and handed it to one of the remaining kids. "Please take this list to Old Al's. If they don't have all the items, try the other addresses I've written. Ask them to put it on my account."

The kid eyed the list. "Sugar and water too?"

"Raid the kitchen first," Wes said with more patience than Gunn would have granted the little smartass.

The kid ran off with the list, and Gunn gestured with the mop at Wes. "Care to do some real work?"

"Time to get my hand dirty, eh?" Wes put his book aside and picked up the kid's deserted mop. "Mopping flooded floors has always been my goal in life. Is this where you've been all day? I thought you were meeting Alonna."

"I was," Gunn said. "I... well, it's a long story."

"Was it an old girlfriend?" Wes asked, wringing the mop out into a bucket. His eyes didn't meet Gunn's.

"No. Definitely not." He wanted to talk to Wes about Mom, but he wasn't sure how to explain. It felt too personal somehow - he just _knew_ that Wes would ask a bunch of questions that he didn't have the answer to, and that would ruin the whole thing. He needed the miracle to stay miraculous for a while, no analysis breaking it down as a freak magic accident or whatever. "It's complicated."

"Apparently so," Wes said. "I tried to call you three times. I was just about to go find you when I got your call."

So that was why he knew the bus tours. Yeah, coming to think of it, Gunn had been away for quite a while - but why wouldn't he be? He could take care of himself, and Wes knew that.

"You don't have to check up on me," Gunn said, and maybe it came out a bit more annoyed than he'd intended.

Wes's jaw tightened, and he started carrying the bucket to the door. "Clearly not."

Gunn swallowed a curse. When Wes clammed up like that, you knew he was offended.

Well, there wasn't much to be done about it right now.

David Nabbit was every bit as cringe-worthily enthusiastic as Wes had expected, and as usual Wes felt torn between his desire to shield the man from inevitable harm and box him in the ears. But he was too busy to do either, drawing arrows on the ground and arranging the silver bowl and other necessary props.

"This is so cool!" Nabbit said, cheeks flushed. "We'll rid this house of an infestation of evil!" He spread his arms out, making his velvet red cape flap in a way that was probably intended to look impressive. The effect was rather ruined a second later by the fact that he stepped into a large, smelly puddle on the floor.

"Echh!" he said, quickly stepping back again.

Anne gave him a slight, if somewhat tense, smile. "I would find it cooler if the shelter wasn't falling to pieces."

"Right, right," Nabbit said, all of a sudden looking very professional for someone in such a ridiculous outfit. "I suppose even if we get the spell done before nightfall the damage is too extensive for anyone to actually sleep here. Do you have somewhere to send them?"

"There are a couple of other shelters. I've called them up, they're aware of the situation."

"Saint Mary's?" Gunn suggested.

"Good idea."

"And you should talk to Alonna about squeezing some in at their place - for tonight, at least."

Anne pondered that and then nodded. "I suppose your lot can handle them if they get out of hand. The big question is what's going to happen long-term, though." She glanced at Nabbit, who was busy watching the slight glimmer now coming from the broken pipes. The pixies were becoming much too bold.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Gunn said impatiently. "She's trying to ask you for money, Nabbit."

Nabbit looked up, wide-eyed. "Oh, of course..." he started, at the same time that Wes barked "Gunn!"

Anne had turned a deep shade of red, and Wes didn't blame her. Gunn was relentless, though.

"And Wes thinks you're too polite to say no, or something. So they're both pussyfooting around the issue."

Nabbit was now deep red too, and Wes wasn't too sure what color his own face might be.

"I'm not..." Nabbit started. He started on a few other words and finally turned to Anne. "Of course I'll help. You know that. I'll go through the finances with you and everything, make sure we get this done in a cost-effective way."

Anne smiled, but there was a furrow between her eyebrows. "This is quite a bad investment for you, huh?"

"It's a shelter," he said. "I wasn't expecting anything else. Besides, it's not like it all comes from my own pocket. I'll get the foundation involved, obviously. It's all tax deductible anyhow."

He wasn't sounding half as flustered as usual, Wes noted, though his cheeks were still on the red side. Anne's face had lightened, and her smile was very sweet when she answered, "Okay, then. Thank you, David."

"You're welcome," he said, smiling back.

There was a silence of a sort that made Wes hesitant to point out that he was finished with his preparations and that they were ready to begin.

Nabbit was the one to break the silence, turning back to him and Gunn: "I do know how to say no. Even to good, charitable organizations – I do it every day. But I live in this town. I think making it a little safer is good life insurance even for me." His eyes caught Anne's again. "And then of course there's the added benefit of Anne's company. That's money well spent." Realizing what he'd said, his colour rose again, this time almost to purple. "I mean... that is... I didn't mean to imply..."

She took his hand. "That's okay, David. I get it. You know, a friend of mine is hosting an Ed Wood marathon. Would you care to join me there?"

He stopped stammering. "I'd love to."

Gunn's chin had dropped to an unseemly level, and Wes closed his own mouth, determined not to gawk.

"Are we ready to start the spell now?" Anne asked Wes, her eyes still on Nabbit.

"Almost," he said. "We need another person. The spell calls for five."

Anne broke eye contact with Nabbit and hollered "Demelza!" down the hall. A short hispanic girl showed up – Wes recognized her vaguely from when he had worked there. From what he could remember, she was a quiet, reliable sort of girl and a very good choice for this kind of spell.

"We need your help here," Anne said. "Wesley will tell you what to do."

Demelza looked to Wes, awaiting orders.

"All right," Wes said, handing her a candle. He hoped she was somewhat intelligent as well as obedient. "Stand over here, by the arrow, and when I point at you, I want you to say, 'I call you from the north. Pixies, join us!' Can you do that?"

"I call you from the north," she said slowly. "Pixies, join us!"

"Good! And then: 'I call you from the north. Pixies, drink!"

She repeated his words again, not a single one out of place.

"Excellent! Now, the others will be saying the same thing, from other points of the compass, and then you repeat 'Join us!' and 'Drink!' Do you understand?"

She nodded.

"Very good." He'd given her the easiest spot - north came last, and she'd already have heard the words several times by the time it was her turn. His own spot would be the middle of course, and for east... "Gunn," he said, "you stand over there." He pointed to the eastern corner. "And take a candle."

Gunn took a candle and went to stand where Wes had pointed.

"And what do you say?"

"I call you from the... wherever," Gunn said. "Pixies, join us!"

"East!" Wes said. "You're standing east!"

"Well, you didn't tell me that," Gunn said, rolling his eyes a little. "Relax, will you?"

Wes tried to relax. It wasn't easy. Though he had participated in group spells before, he had never orchestrated one, and if any of them said their phrases wrong, they would have to start the entire thing over, preparations and all.

"Anne, you're south," he said, pointing in the right direction. "David, west."

They each took their position, and he drilled them in their parts. It wasn't until he lifted the book up to start the spell that he realized something concerning his _own_ part. He could hold a candle, or the book, but he couldn't do both.

Biting back a curse, he put the book down on the floor and hoped things wouldn't get too messy when the pixies showed up.

"Gunn," he said, "could you light the candles, please?"

As Gunn did so Wes ran things through one last time in his brain. They had everything they needed, up to and including the strainer and bucket, and there was nothing in the spell that said it _couldn't_ be done crouching down to read a book on the floor. Still, he wanted to at least start the spell in a more dignified way - he had a feeling Nabbit would be terribly disappointed if he didn't.

He read the first few lines silently to himself, and then stood up, raising the candle. "I call you, pixies, from bogs and hiding places, from your homes in this house..."

When the pixies came, they were even smaller than he had expected, and they looked remarkably like moths until they landed in the bowl and started to drink. Unmoving, their long sleek arms and legs became apparent, making them eerily humanoid.

He looked away, concentrating on the pixies that were still coming in. They were swarming around everyone's faces, though fortunately no one was dropping a candle or trying to wave the critters away.

Water splashed on the floor. The bowl was starting to fill up, and Wes had to start sifting out the pixies into the bucket. At first, he juggled his candle and the strainer both, but he soon gave up that idea and grabbed the strainer with his teeth. In a way, it might have been better to let someone else have the center spot - but no one else had the necessary experience.

He missed the bucket with some of the pixies and they lay twitching and melting on the floor, but most of them he managed to plop in right where he was supposed to. The other pixies didn't seem the least bit phased by the death of their peers; they kept landing on the bowl until the air had cleared and there were none left.

Wes blew out his candle and took the strainer in hand, fishing out the last of the dead pixies.

"Well done," he told the others. "Thank you."

Gunn blew out his candle too and stepped up to look into the bucket at the half-melted pixies. "Man, that's nasty. Do they always do that, or is it the spell?"

"They always do that," Wes said. "Pixie bodies are really just held together by the spirits inside. Keep the bucket around for a week or so, and then there will only be sludge left. Unless," he amended, "you subject it to water, in which case the pixie spirits will return and reform their bodies."

"Oh, we wouldn't want that," Anne hurried to say. "Take the bucket with you, would you please?"

"Right." He bent down, and only then remembered another thing about pixies. "I could try selling it for you. Fresh pixie essence can bring in a pretty penny."

"Oh, don't!" Demelza protested, peeking into the bucket. "Poor things!"

Nabbit cleared his throat. "Perhaps we could... uh... release them into the wild?"

Anne cocked her head, giving Wes a thoughtful glance. "And what would a pretty penny be?"

"Depends on the current supply in the city, but anything less than 500 dollars would be a rip-off..."

"Do it," Anne said.

"But they're so..." Demelza started.

"I have a paralyzed plumber and a shelter full of water," Anne told her. "I don't feel like a great humanitarian today, so don't give me any shit, okay?"

Demelza set her jaw. "No, ma'am," she said, blew out her candle, and left the room.

Anne groaned. "Oh, damn it. Least troublesome kid in the whole place, and I had to say something like that. If you'll excuse me, I'll go off and grovel."

"Still want me to sell this?" Wes asked with a nod at the bucket.

"You bet."

She gave them a quick smile and hurried away.

Nabbit started pulling at the strings of his cape. "I suppose it's time for me to leave..."

"Or you could just hang around," Gunn said, collecting the candles into a bundle. "Help out where you can and earn her eternal gratitude." He grinned. "Your choice."

"We never seem to get home on time, do we?" Gunn said as he steered the truck away from the shelter.

Wes gave him a surprised look. True, the work had taken quite some time - selling the pixies, waking the plumber and so forth - but this was hardly unusual. You couldn't keep office hours in their line of work, and Gunn if anyone knew that.

"Are you in some kind of hurry?"

"Nah," Gunn said, his eyes fixed on the road. "Just wanted to get home, that's all."

Wes looked out of the window. "Home to us or home to Alonna?"

"Where the hell did _that_ come from?" Gunn asked sharply.

"I don't know. Perhaps the fact that you spent _hours_ at a place where people resent you for being with me, and you won't tell me why."

"It's not that I _won't_, it's just..." Gunn interrupted himself and sighed. For a few streets, they rode in silence. Then Gunn spoke up again: "It's my mom, okay? The woman that showed up... she's my mom."

Wes sat stunned, trying to process that. He had never asked about Gunn's parents, never given them much thought. He'd heard stories back when he worked at the shelter and had assumed that Gunn's was similar. In truth, even Alonna was a bit too much of family for his liking.

"Oh," he said. "I never realized... I mean, I always thought you were an orphan."

"I am," Gunn said. "I mean, I was." He pulled over, stopped the truck and took a deep breath, both hands on the steering wheel. "She's back. She was dead, and now she isn't, and I don't know how it happened, or why. It's like a dream come true and it scares the living shit out of me because things like these don't happen, you know?"

"I suppose I do," Wes said slowly. He'd heard of people being brought back from the dead, there were spells to arrange it, but only through very dark magic. Unless of course the person in question was a powerful magic user or demon... He could hardly ask Gunn if his mother was a demon.

Gunn started the truck again. "So now you know."

Yes, but knew what exactly? Wes wondered. He tried to phrase the question with care: "Are you certain it's her?"

"I think I know my own mom, Wes!" Gunn snapped. He was approaching their building and scowled. "Aw, crap. What now?"

Wes looked, and saw Alonna sitting on the stairs outside. When she saw them approach, she stood up, her scowl mirroring Gunn's.

Gunn stopped the car and jumped out. "Alonna! Is there something wrong? Is Mom..."

"Mom has gone off somewhere," Alonna said. "She does that. I don't know where she goes, but then, I don't really know anything about her, do I?"

"What are you talking about?" Gunn asked.

"I think she's lying to us."

Wes had stepped out of the car as well and gave Gunn a cautious glance, to see how he would react.

Gunn's jaw set and he crossed his arms. "God, not you too! It's her, okay? It's not some impostor, it's really her, I know it."

"I didn't say it wasn't," Alonna replied, crossing her arms too. "But she's still _lying_ to us. Claiming she doesn't know where she was, how she came back..."

"She's disoriented! Is that so hard to believe!"

Wes watched them both in silence, feeling he had too few pieces of this puzzle to try to solve it - though he rather sympathized with Alonna's attitude.

"Disoriented," Alonna said. "Right. Well, Rondell asked me a funny little thing, got me thinking. _How did she find us?_"

Gunn started to say something, and then closed his mouth.

"Exactly," Alonna continued. "If she woke up all wonky and wanted to find us, she'd start with grandmom, right? Now, last time I saw _her_ she thought I was her sister, and I'm not so sure she's even alive anymore! After that, there's aunt Joanna. All very well, except that'd only lead her to DCF, and _that_ would lead her exactly nowhere. Or do you think there's some social worker out there who'd go 'Oh yeah, I know where the Gunn kids are, they're out hunting _vampires_'?"

"So what are you saying?" Gunn growled.

"I think she knows what's going on, and she's not telling. Which makes me kind of suspicious in general."

"She's our mom!"

"So what? Like moms never fuck up? Get off it, Gunn, she got stabbed in a freaking strip joint, do you think she's some paragon of virtue?"

"Shut up!" Gunn yelled, balling his hands into fists. He took a couple of quick breaths and then said in a lower voice, glaring daggers at both Alonna and Wes, "You two. Jesus. Everything has to be a trap, huh? Fine. You stay here and solve that little mystery. I got to go feed the vamp."

He disappeared inside. Wes moved to follow him, but changed his mind. Gunn didn't seem willing to talk about this in a reasonable manner, and there were still a lot of questions Wes needed answering.

So he found himself doing what Gunn had said - he turned to Alonna and asked, "Fill me in?"

She sat back down on the stairs with a sigh. "I don't know if I can, seeing how I don't really know jack shit. But, sure. What do you want to know?"


	17. Fray

Wes had strewn books all over the table. Gunn ran his hand over one and bent down to read the title of another. _Hauntings and exorcism_.

"Client?" he asked. It seemed every time they talked now, they got into some fight – _disagreement_ – over Mom. Work seemed a safe topic.

"Trouble in Silverlake," Wes said, turning a leaf in the book he was reading. "Most likely a poltergeist. The appointment is for five thirty. Do you want to come?"

"Yeah, sure, might be fun." He frowned a little. "Poltergeist? Haven't you already done those?"

"Once or twice, yes." Wes looked up. "Why?"

"What's with all the research? You know how to do this."

"I did say 'most likely' a poltergeist," Wes pointed out. "In any case, it never hurts to be prepared. I should probably ask Lockley if she has anything on the location."

"Yeah, that should work out well." Neither one of them was on Lockley's good side after that shit Wes pulled with Lindsey McDonald. Gunn could understand her anger, though he wasn't sure why she felt she had to take it out on him too, considering that he'd been in a hospital bed at the time.

"She sounded really afraid," Wes said, gaze back in one of his books.

"Lockley?" He hadn't thought Frosty the Cop _did_ afraid.

"The client."

"Oh." Well, that was more like it. "It's a girl, huh?"

"Mmm. She's very determined not to let the ghost drive her away – that's quite a good starting point, if it _is_ a poltergeist."

Gunn grimaced. "Kind of a dumb starting point, if you ask me. Those things are dangerous, yeah? She'd rather die than move?"

"Well, I've never seen _you_ back out of a fight," Wes said drily.

"I fight my own battles," Gunn countered, and for a moment there, he could see a glint in Wes's eyes, the promise of a laughter, and after the laughter some make-up sex, and maybe after that he'd actually manage to talk some sense into the guy.

There was a hard, quick series of knocks on the door. Gunn scowled, but the chance was already passed, and he went to open.

It was Alonna, standing by the rail looking up the stairs when he arrived. "You guys have mice," she said.

He shrugged. "Wouldn't feel like home otherwise. You didn't come to say that, did you?"

"No," she said, taking her attention off the staircase. "The guys and I are heading off to talk to some people. There's a demon causing trouble, and we want to know where to find it."

"You want me to come with?" That surprised him a little, even if he liked the thought. Having him and the gang on the same case could prove awkward.

"No. I want you to hang with Mom while we're doing it."

He stared at her. "Come again?"

"She leaves sometimes, heads off while we're busy doing other stuff. Now that we're setting up the apartment and all – you heard about that, yeah?"

Gunn nodded, beginning to worry about where this was going.

"Anyway. I haven't the time to follow her around, so I don't know where she goes. I'd like to."

"So it's not babysitting," he said. "It's spying."

"If that's what you want to call it." She shoved her hands in her pockets and leaned back against the railing, watching him closely.

"Maybe she just likes some alone time. Or she's looking up old friends."

"Maybe," she agreed. "But she's acting all shifty about it. I don't think I have much chance to find out why, but she trusts you."

"That cuts both ways," he pointed out. He was starting to get riled up. Alonna had always been honest to a fault, and this calculating shit didn't suit her.

She shrugged. "If you don't want to you don't have to."

That was the worst part – he did. After all the bitching Alonna had done about Mom, and Wes backing Alonna up, he _wanted_ to find out what Mom was doing. He knew she was all right, but he needed some way of proving it. As much as he hated it, going along with Alonna's suggestion might be his best chance.

Still made him feel like a snake in the grass.

"I'll do it," he said. "Just let me have a word with Wes first."

"Sure thing."

He slowly went back into the apartment, telling Wes, "It's Alonna."

"Mm," Wes said, giving him a sharp look. "Trouble?"

"Not exactly. But there's something I gotta do. You can handle the poltergeist, right?"

"Of course."

"Good." Gunn hesitated for a moment, and then started to leave.

"Gunn?"

He turned on his heel, wondering if Wes was going to start asking questions, and if so, what the hell he was supposed to answer.

"Will you feed Angel when you get back? That way I can talk to Lockley and buy some supplies, and then go straight to my appointment."

"Oh. Yeah. Sure." He gived Wes a relieved smile and headed out, grabbing his jacket from the hanger.

"So when are you gonna give me a tour of the new headquarters?" he asked Alonna on the way down the stairs..

"Ask Mom to do it," she said. "It'll be a good bonding experience. Anyway, we'll be busy."

"Yeah," he said. "You'll call me if things go south, right?"

She stopped to grin at him. "You don't trust us to handle things on our own?"

"I trust you," he assured her. "You know your job, you're good at it. But you'll still call me if things go south."

She laughed at that. "Yes, Mom."

They both flinched at the careless word, and for a moment they stood there staring at each other awkwardly. Then Alonna dug out her cell phone and held it up.

"Will call you," she said.

"Good. Get in the truck."

Lockley cast one glance at Wes and said, "Oh no. Not gonna happen."

"You don't even know why I'm here," he protested.

"I can take a pretty good guess." She rose from her chair and started walking away, but he blocked her way.

"There's a girl in Silverlake who has a... an intruder in her apartment."

"Mm, yes," Lockley said, nodding wryly. "And would I be wrong in assuming that looking into this intruder would give me an even better reputation around here? Perhaps you'd even make me an accessory in your little vengeance plans again?"

Wes stared at her, and she met his gaze, her jaw set.

"Very well," he said at long last. "I'll just tell my client that the danger to her life is too _abnormal_ to be of any concern to the police department."

Her eyes flicked away. "You bastard."

"This is a serious situation, Lockley."

"Isn't it always?" She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, walking back to her desk. "All right. What is it you want to know?"

"I need some history of her apartment." He mentioned the address, and Lockley opened a couple of programs on her computer. For a while, they sat in silence while she worked, and then she said. "Okay, it's in here. Three suicides, and one..." She clicked her way down some text and frowned. "One heart attack that was investigated as possibly something more." She looked up at Wes. "Three suicides in the same apartment? What kind of intruder are we talking about here?"

"Do you really want to know?" he asked.

She looked down on the screen and muttered, "I really don't."

"Can you get me more details?"

"Yeah, it'll take a while, but sure." She printed out the search results and called, "Davis!"

When the man she'd called came over, she handed him the papers. "Would you find me the files for these cases, please? They're all in the same location."

The man looked at the files, his eyebrows raised. "Absolutely." Narrowing his eyes, he asked in a mocking tone, "Is it haunted?"

"Just get me the files, Davis."

The implications of that short exchange were very disturbing, and Wes scowled at Lockley. "You told him?"

"I haven't told anyone anything," Lockley snapped. "You pick up enough freaky cases, people start talking. This has been a bad day for me, so cut out the third degree, okay?"

Wes lifted his hand in an apologetic gesture. The lines forming around Lockley's mouth as she spoke made him wonder how many bad days there had been lately, and how many more of them she'd be able to take. It occurred to him that no matter how bad things had been sometimes in the Academy, and later in Sunnydale, at least he had never had to face the solitude of being the only one who _knew_. Surrounded by people who mocked the very idea of ghosts and demons. What a horrifying thought.

"There is one more thing," he said slowly. "If you would."

"What?"

"Lois Gunn. Is there anything on her?"

Lockley's eyebrows flew up, and after a second, she gave a brief snort of laughter. "In your dreams, Pryce."

"It's rather important," he said.

"I bet it is." Lockley leaned back in her chair. There was a cynical smile on her face, and she looked less tired than before, but Wes couldn't quite appreciate the change. "Any chance whatsoever that this Lois Gunn isn't related to a certain Charles Gunn?"

Wes sighed. "His mother."

"And does he know you're asking about her?"

"Naturally," Wes said without missing a beat.

"Good. Then you can tell him to come over here and ask for the info himself."

All right, this wasn't going to work. "Lockley..."

"Forget it, Pryce. I'm not gonna help you go behind your boyfriend's back to do – whatever it is you want to do. For one thing, he's a better guy than you are."

"Yes," Wes agreed willingly. "He is. That's rather the problem."

He tried to think of something more to say, some method of persuation, but drew a blank. She was right; this type of investigation was entirely different from working a case, from an ethical perspective. But what on earth was he supposed to do otherwise?

His job, he supposed. He drew his chair closer to Kate's computer screen. "So, what years were those suicides?"

"Hallway," Lois said, pointing down the same. "Bathroom. Closets. Kitchen. More closets. Bedroom, balcony, another hallway, more closets, livingroom, second bedroom. Pretty impractical setup, but it's a lot better than the basement."

Gunn opened the bathroom door and peeked inside. Small, but well-kept. The kitchen was much the same. "It's better than my place," he said. "Especially with no rent."

"They're risking their lives daily," Lois said. "Sounds like rent to me."

She had a point. After all, what was the difference between chasing demons for money to save the rent, and chasing them for the rent itself?

They walked together through the rooms, Gunn checking them out. As Lois had said, way too much space wasted on hallways and such. At least the closets might service for weapons – or maybe you could remove them completely, if the landlord allowed it.

"It'll be hard to fit everyone in," Lois said. "The apartment's big enough, but the rooms are small."

"You could make bunk beds," Gunn suggested.

She pushed a mattress away with her foot. "Would you help out?"

He shrugged, uncomfortable. "If they'd let me. I'm still kind of lying low."

"I noticed." She sat down on a box – and shit, he hadn't even known that the gang owned enough things to need moving boxes, but he guessed it was weapons – and looked up at him. "Is it worth it?"

Hell yeah, he wanted to say, but the words stuck in his throat. His sister was off looking for dangerous demons and had specifically asked him not to come. His former team got all shifty-eyed when he was around. Sure, he could do his battles through the agency, get paid for it too which he never had before, but to say he had no regrets?

"It's not like I can go back," he said.

She picked at the edge of the box flap, a line forming between her eyebrows. "I don't want you to feel that you don't have any options."

That was so crazy he had to laugh. "Mom, I never had any options."

"Well, you should have some!" Her voice got shrill."God, Charlie, you're so _content_."

"That's an insult, now?" he asked, amused even though her reaction startled him.

"If you're staying with him because you think you have nowhere else to go..."

"I'm staying with him because I want to," he said, fighting the impulse to raise his voice. "I'm not wild about the gang finding out like this, but deed's done."

"Well..." The words came slowly. "If you ever change your mind, it's never too late, you know. There are people I could talk to."

Gunn started to make a wry face, but it froze as he really paid attention to what she was saying. "What people?" He didn't say 'you've been dead' but that was what he meant. What 'people' could she possibly know? Even before she died, she'd been a strip club waitress, for chrissake.

"Well, that would depend, wouldn't it?" she said. "If you wanted to go back to school, for example..."

He laughed at that, a spontaneous snort of laughter that came from relief."That's what you've been doing with your time? Educating yourself?"

"We're not talking about me," she said but there was a shadow of a smile on her lips and even though she turned her face away he could see the eyeroll.

"Shit," he said, feeling all light-headed. "And we thought... well, Alonna thought... Actually, I don't know what she thought."

"She's a suspicious young girl," Lois said, still smiling.

"She's had good reason to be." He watched his mother, trying to think of her from this new angle. You had to hand it to her, it was pretty strong to come back from the dead and not only deal with life, but try to make a better one than before. "So you're at community college or something? What do you tell them? Is that where you go all the time?"

"Half of the time, I don't go anywhere in particular," she protested. "I just walk around. Find some nice places to hang."

"What kind of places?"

She grinned. "I could show you."

Her places weren't quite the kind of fun he would have chosen, but they were sunny and cheap, which were two very good points in their favor. There was a corner of a beach, a lawn in a park, and three stores she declared perfect for window shopping.

It was somewhere around the third store that he hinted it was all getting a bit too chick-y for his tastes. She laughed and asked, "It's a bit early, but... would cheap beer be more suitable?"

"Now you're talking!"

"Come on, then. It's only about twenty minutes away."

They reached the bar – not a bad place considering its prices – and had just ordered their beers when Gunn's cell went off. It was Alonna, sounding so casual he got suspicious.

"You guys finished bonding yet?" she asked.

"We were just about to have a beer."

"Oh. Yeah, okay, you can do that."

His eyebrows flew up. "Thanks for your permission."

She sighed. "That's not what I meant."

Finding out what she did mean took a while. Lois was halfway through her beer when Alonna finally admitted that they'd been attacked by vampires, and that maybe it was a good idea for Gunn to come along for the demon hunt after all.

He gripped the cell phone hard, trying to keep down the feeling of triumph. "And what are the others saying about this idea of yours?"

"They're on board," she said. "And it wasn't my idea – it was Rondell's."

His grip around the cell became even harder. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

There was only one thing he could think of that would accomplish something like that, and it made him enjoy the moment a lot less: "Are you guys okay?"

The pause following was short, but not short enough for him to think he had imagined it. "Sure. All in one piece."

"I'll be right over," he said, hanging up. His beer was still untouched, and he pushed it over to his mom. "You want this? I gotta go."

"Well aren't you the gentleman," she said, but she wrapped her fingers around the glass and smiled a little. "Was that your boyfriend calling?"

"Alonna," he said. Should he tell her what was going on? But it might only make her worried for no good reason. "We've got some work to do. You'll be okay, right?"

"I'm old enough to take care of myself," she said mildly, and then added, lifting the glass, "Anyway, I can always bribe someone to join me."

"Don't," he said. "You won't know where they've been."

It was a joke, sure, but a warning too. He could only hope that she'd listen to it, as he headed out and back to the new headquarters.

Alonna had told the truth, mostly. None of the crew were very seriously injured, just beaten up. Alonna's face was so puffed up and bloody that it made him wince, but there were no deep cuts, just scrapes and bruises.

"You got anything from the guy?" he asked her, avoiding to touch her face or ask if she was okay. She wouldn't thank him for it.

She shook her head. "He split when the vamps showed."

"So what's the plan now?"

"Basically? Going around the neighborhood looking for trouble." She stepped up to one of the boxes, pulling out a big axe.

"Okay, classic," he said, noticing that she limped a little. He really hoped that wouldn't stop her from handling trouble when she found it.

"You bet." She tossed him the axe. "And since you're the only one who hasn't been fighting vamps, you're our main muscle."

Ms. Guest, the client, was clearly a strong and resourceful young woman, but even so Wes could feel her tense up as they entered her apartment. She had good reason, too. They had only just stepped inside when the coatrack lunged at them, and as ridiculous as Wes felt fighting it, he couldn't deny that it was a fairly formidable weapon, as blunt objects go.

"What am I supposed to do?" Ms. Guest asked once the coatrack was docile once again. "We'll never get the spell done in this mess."

"Don't think like that!" he snapped at her. He'd taken a heavy hit on his bad shoulder, and the last thing he wanted was for this to drag on for hours. "You need to focus on getting this ghost out. This is your apartment, not hers."

"Well, it kind of is hers," Ms. Guest started.

"Not anymore. Now, let me see some anger!"

She set her jaw and nodded, but it took the better part of an hour and all her chinaware in pieces before she had definitely moved from more scared to more pissed off. Meanwhile, Wes continued to set up the spell, having to do certain parts over and over as the ghost interrupted.

He had to hand it to her, though – once she got angry, she got _very_ angry. When the ritual was finished and she yelled at the ghost to "get the hell out!" her voice was so loud and shrill that Wes's ears started ringing. But it worked; the whole place got quiet. Fabulous.

"Congratulations," he said, grinning like mad.

"Thanks," she said, returning the smile. "For, you know, all of it. So, what do I owe you?"

"Let me get my calculator," he said. He only turned the other way for a moment, but when he looked back, her eyes... Seeing her white eyes, he hurried to stuff the calculator into his pocket and grab the cross around his neck. This was impossible. They had defeated the ghost, he was certain of it! So what on earth was going on – and what was he supposed to do about it?

What he did do about it was stand frozen as Ms. Guest tore down the wall and revealed the skeleton inside.

There was a lesson to be learned from this, he determined as he returned home. One must always prepare for all eventualities. Sure, the second ghost had proven harmless, but he had not even considered the possibility of two ghosts in the first place. That was unforgivable, considering the number of deaths in the apartment, and the son's disappearance - all of which he had known about.

She'd been very gracious about it, but he had given her a ten percent discount just to deafen his guilty conscience.

He felt tired and beat up as he stepped into his own apartment, dropping his keys on a chair by the door. His missing arm was hurting like hell, and during one of the ghost's attacks a large pot had cracked his cheek. All he wanted to do was take an aspirin, lie down, and forget about the paranormal for a few hours.

Gunn's shoes weren't by the door, though. Had he been home at all? Instead of going into their room, Wes checked on Angel.

He was startled to find the vampire lying on the floor instead of the bed, and hurried to kneel down beside him.

"Angel? Are you all right?" he asked, foolishly, he realized, since Angel couldn't answer him. "Did you fall?"

Not that falling out of the bed would hurt him much – it might even be considered an improvement, considering that it took quite a bit of movement. Unless, of course, there had been a vision or something of the sort, and Angel had been thrashing around the way he did while he was under the curse.

Angel lift his head and sniffed a little in the air. Well, he certainly looked all right – or as all right as he ever was. He lifted his hand and touched Wes's face lightly.

Wes smiled, a smile that quickly vanished as Angel's face morphed into his vampire features and he attacked. The blood, Wes realized as he flung up his arm and tried to prevent those sharp fangs from touching him. Even through a band-aid, Angel would obviously be able to smell it, and he didn't have enough presence of mind to control his hunger.

"Angel, no!" Wes shouted, feeling the fangs scrape at his skin. "It's me! Don't! No!"

He was convinced that he would die like this, his throat torn out by someone he considered a friend, but somehow his words must have gotten through, because Angel suddenly drew back. More than that, scooted away as if he'd been burned and sat down in a corner of the room, arms wrapped around his knees and rocking back and forth.

Wes slowly got back to his feet. He was aching all over, and he stared at Angel, wanting to reassure him even though he knew that it was a very bad idea. Instead, he walked out into the kitchen and opened a bag of blood, pouring it into a cup. His hand was shaking so badly that he spilled some on the table, but that seemed like a minor issue at the moment.

He returned to Angel and handed him the cup. "Here you are. Drink this."

At first, Angel just shook his head violently, but then he grabbed the cup and drank in deep gulps.

Wes leaned back against the wall, thinking. In a way, this was improvement. Angel had performed a physical action – a violent physical action, but still – and he had managed to pull back of his own accord. Which meant that he had recognized Wes as, maybe not Wes, but at least something that shouldn't be eaten. Not to mention that the headshake was remarkably close to communication.

None of that was very comforting at the moment.

He walked down into the livingroom and sat down in front of the television, without even the energy to make it back to bed. Despite his weariness, he didn't fall asleep, just sat there staring at the black screen and trying to sort out his thoughts, without much luck.

He didn't know how long he had been sitting there when he heard a key being turned in the front door, but it was starting to grow dark outside.

Gunn turned on the light as he walked into the livingroom, looking surprised and a bit amused to see Wes there.

"Saving electricity?" he asked.

"Where have you been?" Wes asked levelly.

"Out hunting."

"Alone?"

Gunn gave him a wide grin. "No, with the gang. Can you believe it?"

Far too easily, and with dread, but he didn't say that. "Do you remember what I asked you to do before you left?"

"Yeah, help with the poltergeist, but you were going to do that alone, right?"

"Right."

"So how did it go?" Gunn asked, still smiling.

"Well enough. I wasn't talking about the poltergeist."

Gunn looked puzzled, and his smile started to slide away. "What, then?"

"I seem to recall asking you to feed Angel."

"Aw, shit!" Gunn exclaimed with a grimace. "I clean forgot. Sorry."

"Was your gang's company too riveting?" Wes asked coldly. "Or your mother's?"

"They're not my gang anymore," Gunn said. He wasn't smiling at all anymore. "And I said I was sorry."

Wes knew he should leave well enough alone, but his mouth just kept speaking anyway. "If you considered it too inconvenient a task, perhaps you could have let me know."

"Damn it, Wes, I _forgot_! What the hell is wrong with you? It's not like it'll kill him to go without a meal!"

Wes rubbed his neck, the sore area near the collarbone, hidden under dark cotton but very visible in his mind. Anger welled up in him, hot, dark, bubbling anger that he had to struggle to keep in check. "No, I suppose it won't."

Gunn stared at him, and then muttered "forget it", turned on his heel and left, slamming the door hard enough to shake the floor.

Wes closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the sofa.

The worst part was that Gunn had been having a pretty good day before Wes pissed all over it. Whatever had crawled up and_ died _in that guy's ass, he didn't know. He tossed his bag into the truck and started the engine, trying to figure out a place to go. Cheap beer sounded even better now than it had in the daytime, and so he steered back towards the bar.

It was a lot more crowded than before, and once he'd managed to get the bartender's attention long enough to get a drink, he started looking around for any free spots to sit.

He saw Lois's face by a table and did a double-take, but then smiled. Of course, it made sense that she'd be here. She was the one who'd pointed the place out to him, after all. She'd already had two beers, though, was it really... but what the hell, she could make those decisions for herself.

Coming closer, he saw that she was with someone. Several someones. He could only see the face of one of them – a young redheaded woman – but there was another woman with her back to him, a redhead too, though her hair was darker. And a man.

He frowned. He knew that man, he was sure of it. All he could see was the back of his head, a shoulder and arm dressed in a fancy suit, and gloved hand – no, that was a brace, not a glove. Gunn started making his way faster through the crowd, his beer forgotten in his hand. He bumped into some people in the process, but he didn't care, he just had this growing sensation that this man was _not_ someone he wanted around his mother.

Right before he reached their table, just about the time Lois saw him and lit up, his brain made the connection, and even before the man turned his head, Gunn knew whose face he was about to see.

"Lindsey," he growled.

Lindsey McDonald offered him a pleasant smile. "Charles Gunn, speak of the devil."

"Charlie," Lois pleaded, rising from her seat.

"You get out of here right now," he told her, and then to Lindsey: "And you stay away from my mom!"

"You can't tell me what to do," Lois shouted in protest. "Or him, for that matter."

"I can do a hell of a lot more than that!" He grabbed her wrist, pulling her away. "Do you have any idea what he's done?"

She yanked her hand out of his grip. "I know what _he's_ done, I know what _you've_ done, and what that _boyfriend_ of yours has done. And don't you lay hands on me like that, I'm your mother!"

"Now, everyone," the haughtier of the other women said, sounding so amused Gunn wanted to hit her even though he didn't know who she was. "I'm sure we can settle this in an amiable fashion."

"Are you one of them too?" he asked. "I swear, if one of you lawyers so much as touch her..."

"Lois represents a valuable investment to us," the woman said. "I assure you we have no intention of harming her."

He stared at her, the cogwheels moving in his brain, and then his head snapped around towards Lois. "Investment, huh? They brought you back. They were the ones who fucking brought you back, and you said you didn't remember."

She cast her eyes down, looking vaguely ashamed for the first time. "Charlie..."

"That's not who I am, mom."

Lindsey put a hand on his arm. "Listen, Gunn..."

Punching him wasn't a conscious decision.Gunn didn't even know he'd do it until he had. It was definitely the right one, though. The pain in his fist couldn't hide the absolute _rightness_ of making Lindsey's nose bleed.

The next second, Gunn was flying through the air, landing with a thud by the next table. He had no idea what had happened – no one had even touched him.

Lois had apparently figured it out, because she turned to the second woman – the one who'd been quiet so far – and said, "Don't."

"I'm just trying to help."

"I know, but don't." She asked Gunn, "Can't we just talk about this like adults?"

"With them?" he scoffed, working to get his legs back under him. "No way."

Her jaw set. "Fine." She took her purse from the table and marched past them, through the crowd and out the door.

They all watched her leave in silence, and then Gunn stood up, slowly.

"What the hell have you done to my mother?" he asked.

Lindsey nodded towards the door. "Are you going to follow her?"

"Not until I get some answers."

"Suit yourself," Lindsey said with a shrug. "But if you don't go out there, I will. I'm sure Lilah can answer any questions you might have."

"Oh, absolutely," said the woman called Lilah. She still sounded amused, damn her.

"Don't you move," Gunn growled.

Lindsey cast a glance at the other woman, the one without a name who'd sent Gunn flying without a touch. "Right. Well, I'd hate to point out the obvious, but LA can be rather dangerous at night, especially for a lonely woman. As we've said, we have some interest in keeping your mother alive. I assume that you do, too?"

As much as Gunn hated admitting it, Lindsey had a point about the streets not being safe. If it had been Alonna, he wouldn't have let that stop him, but his mom had already been killed once – he didn't have much trust in her ability to take care of herself.

He still wanted to beat up those lawyers, but there didn't seem to be much chance of doing that with Miss Spoonbender around, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let Lindsey go out to find Lois.

"God damn it," he muttered, and left the bar.


	18. Drawn In

When Gunn stepped out onto the street from the bar and found his mother already missing, it sent his heart straight up into his mouth. Okay, so the likelihood of her bumping into a hungry vampire within minutes was pretty low, especially since now she apparently had Wolfram and Hart on her side. They had to have some way of looking after their own; Lindsey's smug look had implied it, anyway. Then again, the thought of some evil lawyer-bodyguard watching over his mom like the guardian angel from Hell wasn't the most comforting thought either.

He ran down the street, turned a corner, and, when he found nothing there, ran back and searched the other way. It was ten minutes before he found Lois, but she was only a few blocks away; not walking like a woman with a purpose, in other words.

"Mom!" he shouted, and she stopped without a word, waiting for him to catch up with her.

"Jesus Christ," he breathed when he had, taking her into a brief but strong hug. "Do you have any idea how much you scared me?"

"I'm fine."

"Are you really?" He couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice, and she scowled at him in return. "Wolfram and Hart? Do you have the first clue how evil they are?"

"Oh, listen to yourself," she said, and started to wander off, hands shoved in her pockets. "Good, evil, heroes, villains, monsters under your bed."

"The monsters are real. You know they are. These people are dealing with some pretty dark stuff..."

"And that dark stuff brought me back," she countered. "I owe them one."

"The hell you do. They didn't bring you back out of the goodness of their hearts; they have some plan in mind."

She gave him a tight, cynical smile. "People usually do. Doesn't mean I can't get some good things out of this."

"You can't play them! Try that and you'll end up dead in an alley – again!"

Some bypassers threw him strange glances, and it occurred to him that this was maybe not the best argument to have in public. "Can we go somewhere to talk?"

Lois pursed her lips, thinking for a moment before suggesting, "I have the keys to Lilah's place."

"Lilah? One of the women in there? No way." Headquarters wasn't much of an option either, which really just left one conclusion. "We'll go to my place."

She paused, and then gave a quick nod of agreement. On the way back to his truck, they walked in silence, since he had no idea how to talk to her without involving words like "demon", "evil", and "resurrected." The thought of Wolfram and Hart sweet-talking his mother into an alliance with them made him nauseated. He knew how good they were at duping people – hell, even Anne had been in their corner once.

Somehow he doubted he could shake a software billionaire from his pocket to make Mom change her mind. He'd have to figure this one out himself. Considering Alonna's attitude towards Mom so far, she was unlikely to be any help. There was Wes, of course... though what had gotten into Wes tonight, he had no idea. He definitely wasn't looking forward to going home to _that_ on top of this crap.

They reached the truck and took their seats. After the thud of the doors closing, there was a moment of silence before Gunn started the engine.

"Did your grandmother teach you to purse your lips like that?" she asked. "You're a bit young for it."

"Don't," he said, his hand clenching hard around the steering wheel. "Don't make jokes. Please. Just don't."

"Who said anything about jokes? It's creepy, how much you look like her when you do that."

"I'm serious. Don't. I can't take it if you do. They _blew me up_."

Her eyes rested on his face – riding shotgun, she had an excellent view of the damage, and if it wasn't as bad as it had been, it wasn't pretty either. Even with the junk Wes had bought him to accelerate the healing, it'd be a long time before the scars faded entirely, if they ever did. He couldn't stand to see the tears welling up, and so he turned his attention to the road, grateful to have that excuse.

"I have to ask you something," she said softly, but she didn't go on.

"So ask me," he finally prodded, when it seemed she wouldn't say anything.

"Is it true you stole an ancient artifact from them?"

His head whipped around, and he had to make a couple of swift moves to keep the car in control. He should have known those damned lawyers would be able to spin that theft to their advantage.

"Yeah," he admitted. "I did."

"And that the explosion was a way for them to get the artifact back?"

"I... Yes. I guess it was."

"And that once they did have it back, your boyfriend..."

"Wes went to see Lindsey McDonald and shot him three times to get the scrolls back yet again. Yes. He did that. And I'm not defending it, but if he hadn't done it... do you know about Angel?"

"Lilah mentioned him. A vampire?"

Damn. "Yes, okay, a vampire, but he's not like the rest of them. He's got a soul."

"She said he's insane."

"They drove him insane."

"Oh." She chewed on her lip. "So it's not true what she said, that he went insane after his demon lover died?"

"I don't think they were ever lovers," Gunn said. The question made him uncomfortable, but he couldn't let that distract him from the important part. "But sure, he was a bit loco from the start. Nothing near like how he ended up after what they did to him, though. Wes had to get the scrolls back, it was the only way to help him."

"Charlie," she pleaded, shaking her head. "You have to realize how this sounds..."

"I do," he said, angry with the lawyers for filling her head with crap, and with himself because he didn't know how to counter it. They were back at his own street now, and once they got up to the apartment, they'd have Wes to deal with and everything would be harder still. "Believe me, I do. That part's a tangled mess. I'm not denying it. But I'll tell you what's not a tangled mess. The reason I was in there in the first place. Lindsey McDonald, craplord of the universe, hired us to work _against_ Wolfram and Hart, because even he couldn't stand the kind of shit they were doing. They sent a woman out to murder some kids – children, Mom! – and he came begging to us that we put a stop to it. I stole a bunch of documents that day, as well as that fucking scroll, and I'm not the least bit sorry. I even doubt that _he_ is, he's just playing contrite 'cause he values a corner office higher than his backbone."

She stared at him. "That's not true. It can't be."

He pulled the brakes. "Well, it's nice to know you've decided who to trust."

"I'm sorry," she said, getting out of the car. "But, you know, that's a hell of a thing to tell me, and it's not exactly the first hell of a thing I've been told lately. So no, I haven't decided who to trust, and maybe that means I'm not moral enough for you, but this whole experience is kind of confusing, and I need some space to figure things out!"

He closed his eyes for a second, and as he stepped out onto the sidewalk let his hand brush her arm. "I get that. I do. But here's a clue for you: I'm the one who hasn't asked you to lie to your own kids. That ought to tell you something."

She shook her head, blinked away the tears and started walking up the stairs. "What would you have wanted me to do? Come right up to you and go, 'Hi, Charlie, it's Mom. I know I've been dead for the past fifteen years, but these people you hate brought me back, and I want us to be a family again'? I wanted us to have a chance to get to know each other again before we got into the complicated stuff."

"A chance for me to lower my defenses."

"You make it sound so ugly. I don't have any ulterior motive, I just want a good life. For all of us."

A chill ran down his spine, and he paused half a step. "They offered you a deal, didn't they?"

She slowed down, and then sped up again, hurrying past him on clattering heels. When had she started wearing those? Really dumb shoes if you planned on going out after sunset. There was something different about her clothes all over... she was dressing up a bit. Not much, not so you'd notice her in a crowd, but enough that she wouldn't look like a freak hanging with a bunch of suits.

"Mom!" he called up.

She halted her steps and looked down over the railing at him, biting her lip, but she didn't say anything.

He took the next set of stairs two steps at a time and asked her again once they were on the same level, "Did they offer you a deal?"

"I wouldn't call it a deal," she said reluctantly. "We've talked some about what options I've got."

"Yeah," he scoffed. "Get screwed now or later."

A door opened above and someone started walking down, but it didn't even register until Lois started at something behind him. Turning around, he found Wes looking down on them.

"Hi," Gunn said, searching for words. Between his mom's wide eyes and Wes's reserved expression – those were always the worst – he could tell that this meeting was going bad already, and it had only been a few seconds.

Lois offered Wes a smile, and Gunn didn't fault her for it, but it was a pretty damned shaky one, full of half-veiled pity, and if Gunn picked up on that Wes sure as _hell_ would.

"Hi," she said, her voice a tad too high-note and cheerful. "You must be Charlie's bo... um..."

"I'm Gunn's boyfriend, yes, "Wes said, sounding – at least to Gunn's ears – more British than ever. "And I take it you're his mother."

"Okay, fine," Gunn interrupted. "Introductions over. Can we go inside?"

Wes shrugged. "Very well."

Lois seemed dubious, but she followed them inside the apartment, and relaxed noticeably once she'd glimpsed it. Gunn didn't know what she'd expected, and he really didn't want to ask. The thoughts his imagination provided for him were more than enough to make him wince.

"So what was all that about?" Wes asked. "It sounded like an argument."

Lois bit her lip in a way that really reminded Gunn of Alonna a few years back. He waved away the question. "Family thing."

Wes turned his head slightly, nodding, which made Gunn notice the dark scrapes at the side of his neck. His first thought was 'vampire bites', though they were very shallow for that, like Wes had fought the vamp off. And what was the chance of him being able to do that? "You hurt or something?"

"What? No, I'm fine." The answer came just a tad too quickly.

"What's up with your neck? Have you been hunting?"

Wes let his fingers brush his neck briefly. "No. It's... well, if you must know, it's Angel."

"Angel?" The thought of _Angel_ attacking Wes, of having enough energy to attack anyone at all, when he hadn't paid attention to anything in weeks, short of food... "Holy shit." It all made sense now. "That's why you were so pissed before. Couldn't you have _said_ something?"

"I did say something."

"Something that wouldn't require me to be a mindreader."

Lois squirmed a little and gestured towards the door. "Maybe I should leave."

"Don't you fucking dare," Gunn said, head snapping around. "I'm not done with you yet."

She gave an explosive huff and rolled her eyes. "What are you going to do, shout at me some more? This isn't leading anywhere, you know that. All I want is for us to be happy, but apparently that's so horrible you won't even consider it."

"I am happy!"

"Oh, are you?"

"Is this still a family thing?" Wes asked dryly. "I mean, would it be presumptuous to ask what's going on?"

"Apparently!" Gunn snapped at him. Then he took a deep breath and held up both his hands. "Okay. I'm gonna make some coffee, and we'll talk."

Coffee gave him something easy to do. Okay, so he'd never make it strong enough for Wes's liking, but he'd stopped caring about that, because he'd rather have coffee that he could _drink_.

When Lois took one sip of hers and then set the cup aside - "Too weak" - he felt like throwing something into the wall.

He drank his coffee in deep draughts and told Wes, "It seems Wolfram and Hart were behind all this."

Wes nodded. He hadn't touched his cup. "I see."

"That's all you're gonna say? I see?"

"Am I supposed to be surprised? Wolfram and Hart tend to be behind all interference in our lives."

"Were they behind that?" Lois asked in a low voice, managing to nod towards Wes's shoulder without looking straight at it.

"No. That was earlier."

"So that's one thing you've done that they haven't."

Wes seemed taken aback for a second, and then he smiled. "Lindsey. Well. Shall I take it that they haven't just resurrected her, but kept her, too?"

"Kept?" Lois raised her voice and glared at Wes like she wanted him dead. "What am I, a whore?"

"Who bought those clothes?"

"Would you prefer me naked? Oh, _right_. I forgot. You really wouldn't."

"Okay, stop it!" Gunn shouted. "Wes, could you... step out for a minute. Stay in the bedroom, or whatever."

Wes got a strange glint in his eyes at that, but he said, "By all means," and left without another word.

With him gone, Gunn could return to battling _one_ front, but the longer he and Lois talked, the more circular the damn conversation felt. By the time he admitted the thought out loud, though, he had already poured the by then ice-cold coffee into the sink and rinsed the cups. "We're not getting anywhere, are we?"

She took the towel from its hook and started drying the cups. "It might help if you stopped acting like I'm selling my soul to Satan."

"It might help if you showed any sign of understanding that you might be doing just that."

"Is that what worries you?" She gave him a wry grin. "I promise not to sell my soul. There! Problem solved."

"Don't underestimate them."

"I'll read the fine print. I'll listen carefully to every word. The minute they tell me to sell my soul, I'll be a tower of strength saying 'no, no, no'. Satisfied?"

"No," he said, though his heart beat slower at the sight of her smile. "But it's a start."

"Agreed, then."

He stroked the hair away from her face with both hands and then held it, gently, kissing her on the forehead. "I'm not losing you."

"Oh, Charlie," she said with a sigh, closing her eyes.

* * *

It was late enough by the time she left that when Gunn didn't hear any sound from the apartment, he wondered if Wes had fallen asleep, but it turned out he was sitting in bed, with a pillow behind his back, reading one of those leather-bound old books.

"Am I allowed to leave the room now?" he asked, putting the book down.

Gunn sighed and rubbed his brows. "You know, this is hard enough without you being like that."

"Like what?"

"You know exactly like what, okay? Cut it out. It wouldn't kill you to be civil to her."

"She's with Wolfram and Hart."

"I know that. But it's not like she asked to be brought back."

"She lied to you."

"Thanks for the info. I _know_ that. But that's my business, not yours."

Wes turned his head and looked out the window. It was dark outside, so he couldn't have seen much. His lips were pressed tightly together.

"Wes?" Gunn asked after the pause had stretched out way too long.

"The way she looked at me," Wes said at long last, still looking out the window. "Is that my business?"

"She's hardly the first one to look at you funny," Gunn said softly.

"In what way does that make it better?"

"It doesn't – but it doesn't make her a bad person either."

Wes didn't answer, but the muscles in his face and body relaxed a little, giving him a wistful, faraway expression. Gunn watched him in silence, aching to take him right now, kiss that long, lean back as he pushed inside – but the mood wasn't exactly romantic, and he was much too tired to come up with anything to say that might make it so.

"Are you gonna sleep?" he asked. "Cause I'm beat, so if you're not..." He made a scooting motion.

"No, I am." Wes got up and lay the book on the table. "Do you want the bathroom?"

Nobody could polite you all the way to hell like Wes could.

"Yeah," Gunn said, with a jerk of his chin. "Why not?"

* * *

Gunn woke up first, which was kind of annoying since it meant Wes was lying in his way. He let his head fall back on the pillow and wished for a bedroom large enough that they could put the bed in the middle of the room and have sides that they slept on – sure, the bed was a bit small for it, but it was better than trying to climb over Wes on his way out.

He tried to go back to sleep, but the sunlight kept him awake, and besides, he was getting hungry. Finally he sighed and pushed himself up so that he could untangle himself from the bedsheets and crawl out at the bottom of the bed. It made Wes stir a bit and mutter noises, but you couldn't call it waking up.

The fridge turned out to actually have some stuff in it for once. Wes must have stocked up, because Gunn sure as hell hadn't. At the sight of Angel's blood bags, Gunn paused, feeling a twinge of conscience all mixed with irritation. He quickly grabbed some sausages and eggs and proceeded to fry them with toast in the pan. Everything not breakfast-related would have to wait.

He wolfed down the food – damn, he was even hungrier than he thought – and since he very much doubted Wes would appreciate cold eggs and toast, he didn't save any, just some sausages.

Having cleaned the plate, he sighed and went off to see Angel.

The room was dusky as always, dark blinds covering the window. Gunn turned the light on and went up to the bed. As usual, Angel showed no sign of recognizing him, though his eyes were slowly moving like he was looking at things.

"Hey, Ange," Gunn said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "You know, I'm happy you're feeling better and all, but I want you to know that if you ever, _ever_ do anything like that to Wes again, I'm gonna chain you to the wall. Is that clear?"

Angel frowned slightly. Maybe he had heard, or maybe someone was chatting away in that imaginary world of his.

"I'm not so worried you're gonna kill him," Gunn continued. "He's tougher than he looks, and he'll be prepared for you now. But we don't need the stress, you know?"

He waited a moment – not that he expected an answer or anything.

"Okay then. Glad that's settled."

When he stood up, his foot collided with something that slid across the floor. Picking it up, he recognized it as one of Wes's notebooks. It was open, face down and he turned it over.

Red-headed telekinesis girl stared back at him.

Of course, she wasn't red-headed in the picture; it was a blue-and-white ink drawing. Gunn flipped through the pages of the book, and it looked like the same ink as the notes Wes had made. But when had Wes met that girl? Coming to think of it, when had Wes learned how to draw? Gunn had never seen him do it, and this was a pretty damn good drawing.

He brought the notebook back to the bedroom and shook Wes. "Hey. Wake up."

"Mmph?"

"Wake up. Come on. Did you draw this?"

Wes rubbed his eyes, reached for his glasses and, once they were on, took the notebook from Gunn's hand. He looked at it blankly for a while, then shook his head. "No." Holding up the book, he asked, "Is this mine?"

"Yeah. So who did draw it, if it wasn't you?"

"I haven't the faintest idea." He started leafing through the pages. "It's next to the notes on the Chula, who most definitely do not resemble young women. Otherwise I might have suspected one of my sources to have drawn it as a mean to conveying information, though why would they do that and not tell me about it?"

"I found it in Angel's room. You don't think _he_ could have..." Gunn shook his head before finishing the sentence. Having the presence of mind to attack Wes was a whole different thing from sitting down to paint a pretty picture. "Nah."

"I wish, but it seems highly unlikely." Wes pushed up his glasses and studied the drawing closer. "Was your mother in there?"

"Mom?" The thought hadn't even ocurred to him, but now that it did, he couldn't quite shake it. "Not that I know. She left for the bathroom a couple of times, I guess she could have."

"It's a long shot."

"No," Gunn said, taking the notebook back. "It's not. She knows this girl – I saw them together yesterday. She punched me with her mind."

"You mean telekinetically?"

"Yeah. Exactly."

Wes took a deep breath and rubbed his chin, silenced for a moment. Then he offered: "I think you should find your mother, see what she knows."

"But it doesn't make any sense. Why would she make a drawing like this and then try to hide it?" Gunn caught sight of Wes's expression and huffed. "Don't get started on her lying again."

"I wasn't going to. I think maybe there's something she wants to tell you without Wolfram & Hart finding out about it. It's quite possible that they're bugging her."

"Microphone bugging?" Gunn's hands rolled into fists of their own accord. "Damn. Okay, I'll find her." He leaned in and gave Wes a quick peck on the mouth before heading for the door. "There are sausages in the kitchen if you want some."

"Gunn – you'll have to be cautious about this."

He stopped in the doorway, grinned, happy that for once, Wes and he actually seemed to be on the same side where Lois was concerned. "Yeah, I know."

* * *

Perhaps it wasn't an act of caution to go straight to Wolfram & Hart, but Gunn didn't feel up to facing Alonna right now to ask her if she'd seen Mom – too much explaining to do and little chance of escaping it. She read him far too well. Looking through the phone book for "Lilah" wasn't an option either, but the Wolfram & Hart reception desk was another matter.

"Which Lilah would that be?" asked the desk clerk, a tiny bespectacled thing that nevertheless gave off a seriously wrong vibe. Or maybe that was just his nerves being on edge.

He offered her a wide, pleasant smile. "The one who's got my mom."

"Morgan!" she said, her voice a note too high. "I'll call her up for you."

She made the call while he stood there and threw disapproving glances in his direction as she spoke. If she thought that'd be enough to make him sit down and shut up, she was sorely mistaken, and he was kind of amused that she'd even try. At a place like this, with crooks and maybe even demons waltzing in like they owned the world – something he was willing to think might be true – she must be used to people a hell of a lot more disturbing than him. Except possibly in better clothes.

The clerk returned to her typing, her fingers flying over the keys, and soon Gunn leaned closer. He could see it now, the cause of that wrong vibe, it was in those fingers – and he lifted his eyes from her hands, watching the sun-lit wall behind her.

"Would you care to sit down?"

"No, thanks, I'm fine." She had no shadow. Well, you had to hand it to these evil creeps, they had a lot of guts to stick someone like that in the desk. Then again, he supposed she did provide a certain kind of balance. Human enough for the humans, creepy-ass enough for everyone else.

He didn't have to wait long before that smug bitch came down towards him, all smiles and outreached hand. "Well, isn't this a pleasant surprise. What can I do for you?"

"I want to talk to my mom."

Lilah's smile widened. "Of course. Who am I to deny a young man his mother?" Still looking at him, smiling at him, she took a pen from her inner pocket with an elegant gesture, and picked up a pad of post-its from the reception desk. A few quick turns of the pen later – and damn it, the woman was posing like a damned silver screen movie star – she tore off the top note and gave it to him. "Here you go. My adress and phone number. Are you sure you don't want the tour?" She made a gesture to indicate the rest of the building.

"Very sure." He read the note, making sure to memorize the address in case they'd be working some mojo and making the note disappear the moment he stuffed it in his pocket.

"Well. The offer stands."

He showed his teeth and walked away, all sorts of chills going down his spine as he turned his back on her. On the other hand, he sure as hell didn't want to turn his back on that door either – who knew what'd walk through it next?

The address wasn't far, but he still sped the truck up on his way there, wanting to leave the firm behind as quickly as possible.

It was a semi-fancy neighborhood, nothing jaw-dropping, but enough that he got a funny look from a man passing him in the hallway. He found the right floor and had just stepped out of the elevator when a redhead girl came rushing into it.

_The_ redhead girl.

He quickly went back in and let the door fall shut. "Hey."

She gave him a look that was hostile, scared, and more than a little bit dangerous. Then her shoulders fell down. "Oh. Lois is in there." There was a strange tone to her voice that he couldn't decipher.

"Actually, it's you I came to see."

She tensed again. Any moment now, and she'd start throwing – well, him. There wasn't much else to throw. He hurried to add, "Are you going somewhere? I can drive you, if you want."

"Why? Why would you drive me?"

He shrugged and stepped away from the door, holding his palms out, trying in general to seem as non-threatening as possible. Crazy, really, when she was the one who could mess him up but good if she wanted to.

For a moment, he thought she'd bolt. Then she leaned across his body and pushed the elevator button, the fabric of her blouse brushing his arm. "Fine. Drive me to the airport."

Airport meant going away, which combined with the way she was acting meant some sort of trouble, but now was definitely not the best time to ask questions, and so he just nodded. "I'm Gunn, by the way."

"Not Charlie?"

"Just to my mom."

She chewed her lip and then said with a strange sort of hostility, "Bethany."

When they reached the ground floor, both the elevator door and front door flung open before he had a chance to press the button. She strode past him out onto the street, and stopped short when she saw the truck. "What's _that_?"

"That," he said, imitating her tone, "is your ride to the airport, so whatever you got to say, I don't want to hear it, okay?"

She snorted, but didn't say a word as they sat down and drove away, just had this little superior smile going on. For a while, they drove in silence, and he tried to come up with an angle to ask her about the drawing.

The weapons started rattling in the back, so much that he wondered if the axle was uneven or something. And then the radio turned itself on, to some tango music. He glanced in the mirror and wasnt surprised to see his passenger tense and wide-eyed, all traces of a smile gone.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, a bit too quickly.

"Okay." He thought for a while, and then offered, "So what were you gonna say?"

"Huh?"

"About the truck. You can say it if you want."

The noise from the back faded a little. "What's the deal with the timber?"

"They're stakes. To kill vampires." Seeing her expression, he elaborated: "You find a nest, lure out the vampires, and then slam the truck straight into them. On a lucky night, you can get half a dozen that way."

"God, that is so male," she muttered. "I thought you were gay."

He blinked, and had to swerve not to hit a lamp post. "What?"

"You're not?"

"No, I... am." He didn't feel like going into specifics, and considering the way she'd brushed against him in the elevator, he wasn't sure he should either. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You're right, I guess the same basic principle still applies."

"Basic... oh." He made a grimace, fighting the mental image she'd given him. "You got a dirty mind."

"Everyone's got a dirty mind, I'm just more honest about it."

She sounded so hostile that he briefly considered just ignoring the comment, but that didn't feel fair to his truck. "I think I can safely say I've never once thought of this equipment as some sex tool."

"Right. Thrusting 'this equipment' into vampires – six a night! – isn't in any way related to a sexual experience." She spoke the words in a rhythm that in itself was pretty damn dirty. "Maybe you don't get laid enough."

"Maybe you need to butt out."

She pursed her lips and looked out the window. The radio flicked itself off, and all was silent in the back.

When they reached the airport, she grabbed her bag and jumped out of the truck, heading across the parking lot. He remained in his seat, watching her go. If he was going to solve this mystery with the drawing, he should go after her, find out what was going on. But, well, she was leaving town. Whatever was about to happen, at least it wouldn't be on his turf.

Halfway across, she glanced back at him, kept going, and then turned around, walking back to the truck with brisk steps.

"Just so you know," she said, flinging the door open, "I hit Lois with a lamp."

"What?"

"Before I left. I don't think she's hurt – she said she wasn't hurt – but you should probably check on her."

"And you just sat there and let me..."

She slammed the door while he was still speaking and started walking away again. He hurried out of the truck and ran after her. His first instinct was to grab her, but that seemed like a fundamentally crappy idea, and so he stuck to walking beside her. "You couldn't have told me?"

"I'm telling you now."

"Why'd you do it?"

"I... it just happened. I didn't mean to."

An accident with those damned powers of hers. Yeah, he could see that, and though part of him wanted to call up Mom right now and make sure she was okay, for the first time he was also worried about this girl. "Is that why you're running?"

"Who said I'm running?"

He could see it, in her face, her shoulders, the same signs he'd seen so many times before, in the kids that showed up at the headquarters or at Anne's. And before any of that, in himself and Alonna. Difference being, what they ran from stayed where it was.

"Listen, I don't want to sound like a cheap shrink, but if you're running from what you can do, what makes you think you can ever stop running?"

"Maybe I can't."

"Maybe you should. You want to handle this? Really handle it? Then come home with me. Wes, my boyfriend, he's smart with stuff like this. We can figure something out to help."

She stopped and spun around, nearly tripping him. "Why would you?"

"'Cause it's what we do." He fumbled through his pockets, found a bunch of their cards and pulled one out, handing it to her. Pure businessman, except for the part where he was following some strange chick through an airport parking lot.

"Private paranormal investigations," she read out loud. "Are you kidding me?"

"Pays the bills," he said and then amended, "Sometimes, anyway."

She flipped the card between her fingers, her hair falling down in her face so he couldn't see her expression.

"Even if you do come," he said, "you can change your mind afterwards. I'll drive you straight back here, no worries."

"You know, I'm not actually _with_ Wolfram and Hart," she said.

"Good to know."

She looked up, rolling her eyes. "I meant, I don't have any money."

It took him a moment to realize just what that had to do with anything. How often did they have honest-to-God paying clients anyway? "Doesn't matter."

Her face took on an even more guarded expression than before. "Right. You're just a saint looking to improve your karma."

Somehow, he had a feeling the whole notion of keeping the streets safe wouldn't fall on friendly ears. He shrugged. "I can give you a whole bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with karma. It's fun. It's interesting. It'll piss off Wolfram and Hart, which I admit is probably good karma in itself." She smirked a little, and he continued, encouraged, "It's always good to have a telekinetic in your corner..."

He knew even as he said the words that it was a misstep, and she proved it by turning on the heel and starting to walk away. "I'm not gonna be your _thug_."

"And we found a picture of you," he concluded, raising his voice a little so she'd listen. "In Wes' notebook. No idea who drew it."

She turned her face half in his direction, though she was still backing away. "What kind of picture?"

"An ink drawing. Really good, too. I didn't make it. Wes says he didn't either, and I believe him. Right now, Mom is our main suspect. Do you have any clue why she'd draw your face in a notebook and leave it around?"

"It's a pretty face," she said. Though she sounded flippant, she looked troubled, and she had stopped walking.

"It is a pretty face. Somehow I don't think that's the reason. You curious? I know I am."

She watched him for what was probably a full minute, and then jerked her head. "Yeah, okay then," she said, walking back to the car.

He was grateful that she kept looking straigt ahead, because he couldn't hold back his smile.

* * *

"Wes – Bethany," Gunn said, gesturing from one to the other.

"Hello, Bethany, nice to meet you," Wes said. He sounded very polite, but not the fuck-off kind of polite. If anything, it seemed like the preoccupied kind of polite, which was pretty weird. Fortunately, Gunn didn't think Bethany picked up on it.

"Hi," she said. "So you're the smart boyfriend, huh?"

"I..." Wes blinked and looked to Gunn with some evident surprise. "I suppose I am. I started looking up your condition, but I didn't get very far. I'm afraid I got a bit sidetracked. Though I did read that occurrences of telekinesis tend to coincide with extreme emotional stress. Do you know of anything that could have worked as a trigger?"

Gunn had really meant it when he talked up his boyfriend as a smart guy, but it struck him that for all his brains, Wes was also sometimes a complete idiot. This was textbook stuff on how not to start a conversation. "Before we get started on the research – Bethany, would you like some coffee? Tea?"

"No thanks," she said, shoulders up and hands stuck deep down into her pockets.

"Well, you know, come on in. This could take a while."

She stepped past the shoes by the door as if they'd jump up and bite her, and continued into the livingroom, which was cluttered with books and papers as it usually was when Wes was onto something interesting. Going with her, Gunn noticed that the computer browser was open to what he recognized as a missing persons website. It surprised him that Wes had thought of that even before meeting the girl, but even though it was good thinking, letting her see it would be a serious mistake. He turned off the screen, hoping she wouldn't notice.

She sat down on the sofa, arms crossed over her chest. Gunn made sure to leave the doorway free, and to gently nudge Wes aside, too.

"Do you want me to call my mom?" he asked. "I mean, just to make sure she's all right, and I could ask her to pick up..." Talking as if Bethany was staying with them was probably another bad idea. "If you need anything."

"I guess," Bethany said, looking down on her hands.

"I could check if she's the one drawing you, too."

"That reminds me," Wes chimed in. "I don't think she is." He went up to one of the piles and took out a torn piece of brown paper bag that he handed to Gunn. "I found this on Angel's floor."

Gunn smoothed out the paper and studied the ink drawing closely. The style was the same as the one used to draw Bethany's picture, but the motive very different: a man of about their age, dark-haired and slight-boned, kind of handsome if you liked that type. He'd never seen the guy before, but the bag itself seemed familiar. Turning it over, he found the butcher's logo on the back.

"Wait," he said slowly. "Angel?"

"Must have been, yes."

"Holy shit."

"I suppose after a vision hits him, the urge to communicate is strong enough that it breaks through and allows him to find material and create these things."

"Holy shit!" Gunn felt himself grinning like a maniac, and Wes looked so happy that he got a strong urge to kiss him right then and there. Probably would have, too, if they'd been alone. "That's great news. So, who's the guy?"

"I don't know. I've searched for him, but obviously the facial features alone aren't much to go on. I thought I'd have a talk with Kate tomorrow morning."

"Sounds good. Could be urgent, if it's a vision." That brought Gunn's thoughts back to Bethany. He glanced over at her, wondering if she'd changed her mind during their distraction, but instead, she looked a lot calmer than before. He suddenly wondered what she'd been told about them. Considering the crap Wolfram and Hart had filled_mom's_ head with, Bethany's decision to come over proved she had guts – or just didn't care anymore.

"Sorry," he said. "Gonna make that phonecall now. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure."

The note was still in his pocket, no mojo there, and when Lois picked up she sounded just the same as always.

"Hey, it's me. You okay?"

"Yeah, I am." She sounded genuinely puzzled, which relieved him. Bethany couldn't have hurt her too bad, then.

"I got your friend Bethany here."

"What do you want with her?"

The alarm in her voice surprised him, until he realized that she thought he was talking about a kidnapping or something. Jesus Christ. "We're gonna help out with her powers. Relax."

"Oh."

"I'm not a sinister guy, Mom. I thought you knew that."

"I guess I did. I'm sorry."

"It's okay." It wasn't, but starting that argument again would lead to nothing good. "Anyway, do you think you could bring some of her stuff over? As I understand it, she left in kind of a hurry."

There was a long silence, but he didn't push it.

"I guess I could," she said finally. "What do you want me to tell Lilah?"

It was his turn to go silent as he tried to figure out an answer to that one. Yeah, he could ask her to give Lilah a plausible lie. She might even do it – but he couldn't be _sure_, and he could be even less sure that Lilah would believe it. A couple of different options raced through his mind before he said, "The truth. Just tell her the truth." He could always ask Wes to put up some protective spells or something.

"All right. I'll be over soon, then. Good luck with her."

He smiled at the genuine-sounding well-wishing. "Thanks. You know, you're welcome to stay here any time you want."

She laughed. "I'll think about it."

"Promise?" He'd aimed for a light tone, but missed by about a mile.

"Yeah. I promise."

They said their goodbyes, and he hung up, looking back into the living room where Wes had returned to his books and Bethany was sitting in the sofa, knees up, still wearing her coat.

He had a feeling this job would prove a handful.


End file.
